


The Triumph of Uther Pendragon

by Araeph



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Essays, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-01-08 00:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araeph/pseuds/Araeph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A BBC's <i>Merlin</i> review, in which I argue that this show most closely resembles Uther—not Merlin or Arthur—in ideas, form, and function.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thesis

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! I will be posting updates on this essay weekly, more or less, and will take the time in between postings to answer and/or incorporate any ideas, feedback, or counter-arguments you may have. It's rather doubtful the thesis will change, though...the deeper I delved, the more overwhelming the evidence for it was (unfortunately).

  
Thesis

_Just as in_ Smallville _we wanted to subvert expectations. Camelot is a land where magic is banned [and] Merlin ... is a young boy who works as Arthur’s manservant and has to hide his abilities._

–Johnny Capps

 

The premise behind _Merlin_ is an interesting one: a fresh, new take on the Arthurian Legend from the point of view of Merlin. This is a story for modern people, with a younger, more diverse cast of characters. The setting, where magic is forbidden and King Uther persecutes the Old Religion, subverts expectations of a magic-infused Camelot. _Merlin_ doesn’t have to stay true to legend; with _Merlin_ , anything can happen. 

The freedom of _Merlin_ ’s premise was the show’s greatest asset…which the creators insisted on treating as the show’s greatest threat. After the initial thematic hook of a newer, game-changing, alternative universe, they did their level best to keep that part of the show quiet, while they inexorably stripped the protagonists of their ability to fight for freedom. The creators used Destiny to oppress the premise, characters, and even the values of _Merlin_ , until the show came to embody the very tyrant that it claimed to oppose.

 

 

 


	2. Destiny According to Merlin

 

> _None of us can choose our destiny, and none of us can escape it._

–Kilgharrah, “The Dragon’s Call”

 

Kilgharrah, the Great Dragon, is the first creature to introduce us to _Merlin_ ’s idea of Destiny. In context, the line above occurs toward the end of the very first episode. In the intervening half hour, the audience has gotten its first taste of how the show will apply its fresh, new take on the Arthurian Legend. _Merlin_ has just shown us a maidservant Gwen, a bullying Arthur, a Camelot devoid of magic, and Morgana on the side of the heroes. It has shown the self-assured sage as a young, insecure boy that has nary a spell to his name. In short, it has been busy turning our expectations on their heads and freeing the show from slavish obedience to the most familiar versions of the Legend. Just when it seems as if anything can happen…along comes the Dragon to inform us that there is only one path Merlin can take, and he couldn’t escape it if he tried.

 _Merlin_ ’s version of Destiny takes the idea of an outside force controlling the lives of its characters to an extreme. When referring to the fate of the title character, the Dragon is not talking about a one-time deed; Merlin is not bound to kill his father and marry his mother by unhappy chance. Instead, Merlin is destined to spend an entire lifetimeconsciously, deliberately devoted to Arthur’s protection, with no say in the matter whatsoever. It is one thing not to be able to choose a specific unfortunate event; it is quite another not to be able to choose a purpose _._ Luckily for the show, Colin Morgan and Bradley James have a great on-screen rapport and their portrayal of these characters is both skillful and sympathetic. The core of Merlin and Arthur’s bond is natural and believable, more because of the way it plays out than the way it was set up. Indeed, it seems a blatant contradiction for a show that wants to switch things up and bring in fresh ideas to set Destiny on the throne as supreme ruler over the characters’ futures, right down to their choices.

This is not the last time that _Merlin_ will hide behind the Legend, claiming that something _must_ happen a certain way despite the fact that it initially trumpets itself as a departure from legendary tradition. The reason for this is simple: reinventing the Arthurian Legend is a double-edged sword. Perhaps the biggest idea behind this show’s appeal is also the one that carries the most risk. The show manifests this in the way Merlin acts just before finding out about his destiny. He’s doubtful, frightened; he asks, half-joking, if Gaius thinks he’s a monster. He’s frantic to know why he is the way he is; what his purpose is in this world. These questions reflect what the audience is asking: why did you create a younger Merlin? What will you do with him now? How can you get him to stay with Arthur if Merlin doesn’t even like him?

The show has no answer to these questions—that is, no answer that comes from the characters they are as first presented, without the burden of their legendary future. These specificincarnations do not fit into the roles they are known for, but instead of celebrating that fact, the creators do the opposite. Afraid of having to carve out a new place for these characters, the showrunners use Destiny to tell the characters what _must_ happen. And when Merlin balks at the idea of serving someone who hates him, the Dragon is quick to assure him that this _cannot_ be the case: “The half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole.” This is a fine example of what might be called “soft Destiny,” where there is no direct prophecy alluded to, but events _must_ transpire a certain way in the show, often in the face of common sense and direct actions by the characters to the contrary. Arthur will _not_ hate Merlin, no matter what his feelings are at present, and there is nothing more to be said on the matter.

This is not to imply that every story involving Fate or Destiny must be rigid and controlling. Look no further than _Merlin_ ’s progenitor, _Smallville,_ which proves that such a concept can coexist peacefully with a budding drama if handled properly. All _Merlin_ had to do, at any point, was question either the reliability of a prophecy or how it was interpreted. _Smallville_ did this repeatedly throughout its run; say what you will about Veritas and those Kawatche caves, but the _Smallville_ prophecies were reworked and reinterpreted, not only _for_ the characters, but often _by_ them—even subverting or conflicting with other interpretations on the show. This allowed Destiny to function as part of the plot and gave the characters a hand in their own fates, without getting in the way of the show’s growth.

The object of _Merlin_ ’s prophecies, however, is not growth—it is to lay down the road the show will take, from which no character is allowed to deviate under any circumstances. Question the interpretation of a prophecy? It’s a concept unheard of in _Merlin._ It never occurs to the title character to ask the Dragon if there is any wiggle room in a prophetic pronouncement—even when the Dragon doesn’t give him the prophecies’ exact wording. For example, in 2x11, the Dragon says, “The prophecies speak of an alliance between Mordred and Morgana, united in evil.” They _speak of_ an alliance? What specific _evil_ will the pair get up to? That oracle sounds vague enough to destroy a great kingdom (if the Camelot of _Merlin_ were ever allowed to become one). But no one in the entire show wonders if a prophecy can be subverted, questioned, or challenged. The Dragon never mentions where he gets his information, or who the original prophets were, and the show never bothers to cite these sources or inquire into them. The best way to examine the truth of these prophecies would be through a text that can verify the Dragon’s accurate transmission of their words and meaning, since interpreting a prophecy to suit one’s own ends is a practice even older than the Arthurian Legend. The show, however, cannot bear up against that kind of scrutiny: we see only _one_ written prophecy during the entirety of its run, and it is the one decreeing that Arthur will meet his end at Camlann. It makes perfect sense that, in a show whose creators embrace edicts and shun analysis, the only written prophecy is the _last_ prophecy that we see fulfilled onscreen. In fact, it is the one we receive after the judgment against Arthur is already final. That oneprophecy can be safely written down because by the time it comes to light, events are safely in motion in a way that no amount of analysis of the words can change.

Some might be tempted to bring up an exception—or what appears to be an exception—to this treatment of Destiny as hard fact. In 5x02, Merlin says to Gaius, “Remember what the Dragon said? Arthur would meet his end at the hands of a Druid,” and Gaius replies, “You still believe that’s him?” (meaning Mordred). This attempt reeks of dishonesty, first because there’s no prophecy about _a Druid_ as such killing Arthur that _we_ have ever heard of, and second, because we already know that it is Mordred _._ This doesn’t come from the Legend, but from the Great Dragon, who told us back in Series 1 and 2 that not _a_ Druid boy, but _the_ Druid boy, the specific Druid boy they were hiding, was destined to kill Arthur. (The only reason Mordred is a Druid at all is so the writers can call him _something_ until the name reveal at the end of 1x08.) What all this boils down to is that the show is so afraid of its characters questioning the prophecies that it will force them toforget about those prophecies just to maintain the illusion that the characters can make decisions, when they have no real power to do so. If we add this dubious retcon to our reliance on the Dragon as the sole prophetic narrator, then cap it with the show’s unwillingness to interpret the prophecies or leave any room for doubting them, we get a very clear picture of what the creators are aiming for. The prophecies from the Dragon are _facts_ , plain and simple, and their concrete foundation is Destiny. As the creators branch out from the overarching concept of Destiny to the prophecies themselves, we see them lay down these facts not as a map to give the show direction, but as a set of restraints to keep their open-ended premise from getting any wild ideas.


	3. The Prophecy of Merlin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness! I didn't expect such an enthusiastic response. Thank you for so many insightful and heartfelt comments! 
> 
> This is Merlin's chapter, and just to warn you going in, it is _long_. There was a great deal to cover here, not only because Merlin is the main character, but also because to examine Merlin and his role is also to examine the people who were allowed to shape him and his growth—or lack thereof—the most. As always, constructive criticism is welcome, as are counter-arguments and alternate theories. I love watching ideas bounce around the fandom!

 

>  
> 
> _Your gift, Merlin, was given to you for a reason. Arthur is the Once and Future King who will unite the land of Albion. But he faces many threats from friend and foe alike. …Without you, Arthur will never succeed. Without you, there will be no Albion._
> 
> –The Great Dragon, 1x01
> 
> _Your destiny is to protect the young Pendragon until he claims his crown, and when he does, magic can be returned to the realm._
> 
> –The Great Dragon, 1x13

 

The two quotations above contain the debut of Merlin’s destiny—along with Destiny’s first attempt at controlling the show’s main character. The first quotation above is the introduction of the Merlin-and-Arthur prophecy in the first series opener, followed by its clarification in that series’ finale. We can break the two quotations down into five main points:

  * Arthur is the Once and Future King
  * Arthur will unite the Land of Albion
  * Arthur will not succeed without Merlin
  * Merlin must protect Arthur until he claims his crown
  * When that happens, magic can return to the realm



The creators dangle an appealing carrot in front of our noses along with the stick that is Destiny—a consolation, if you will, for the fact that this character must suffer unrecognized in the present. Merlin has to be Arthur’s servant because one day, Arthur will be a great king. Merlin must hide his magic because one day, Arthur will bring about magic’s return. When Nimueh asks Merlin’s mentor, Gaius, why she should trust a traitor who watched his fellow magic users burn, Gaius says, “Merlin is the one man who can bring magic back to this land. At Arthur’s side, he can help forge a new kingdom. A world of peace and beauty that we can only dream of” (1x13). When Merlin has to betray a fellow sorcerer to save the magic-hating Uther, the Dragon says, “You, like I, must hold out hope that Arthur will bring about a new age; an age where the likes of you and I are respected once again” (3x11). In that very same episode, Merlin tells the sorcerer Gilli, “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but…one day, we’ll be free.” In 4x07, Gaius cryptically tells Arthur, “Contained within this great kingdom is a rich variety of people with a range of different beliefs. One day, you will see just how much they have done for you.” The show’s eyes, like ours, are looking to the future: to the golden age of Camelot, where Arthur rules as High King over Albion, Merlin takes his rightful place at Arthur’s side, and magic is allowed to roam free. Like Clark would one day be Superman, Merlin would one day be the renowned and wise magician standing at Arthur’s side. No matter how much suffering Merlin would go through…no matter how much he was ignored, insulted, hurt, bereaved of someone he loved…in the end, it would all be worth it. No matter how many terrible decisions Merlin would undergo, one day, after the darkness would come the dawn.

If we let that veil of hope part for a minute, though, we must acknowledge the two conditions the creators have laid on their main character:

  1. Merlin must stay with Arthur, no matter how Arthur treats him.
  2. Merlin must protect Arthur from his enemies, even if they are Merlin’s own people.



It is worth noting that this prophecy is the only reason ever given for Merlin’s powers—the only explanation Merlin gets for why, in his own words, he’s not a monster. No other path for Merlin’s talents is ever hinted at; no other avenue for magical reunification of Albion ever opens up. After the first episode, the show kicks into an endless cycle of Merlin keeping his magic hidden and saving the day with no credit. Without consulting his feelings or wishes, he _must_ serve Arthur, or else magic will never return to Camelot. To that end, Merlin has no choice but to destroy other magicians who are retaliating against the Pendragons as a result of their persecution at Uther’s hands.

Some viewers might argue that Merlin really is free; he could have walked away from his destiny at any time. Remember, though, what the Dragon said: Merlin cannot escape his destiny. And we see how true this is in 1x10, where Merlin considers staying in his childhood village with his best friend Will, except that Will conveniently dies taking an arrow for Arthur, shutting that door almost as quickly as it had opened. Then in 2x09, when Merlin plans to run away with Freya, she too conveniently dies in his arms before he can stray too far from Camelot. In fact, anyone who uses magic for good or accepts Merlin despite his magic dies (Balinor), turns evil (Morgana), or leaves (Lancelot). Merlin is kept isolated, anyone who could help him change the kingdom for the better removed from his orbit by force.

With “soft” Destiny cutting off all other avenues of counsel, Merlin must go to two characters for advice: Gaius and the Great Dragon. These two characters are shills for the creators who invariably tell Merlin everything he needs to know to keep the show from progressing. We know this for three reasons: first, if any of their advice ends up stunting progress in Camelot, the show will ignore that fact and still hold them up as universally wise. Second, unlike the other characters in _Merlin,_ they are never punished for anything they do wrong. Third, they are kept on the show long past their usefulness as mentor figures without evolving a more equal relationship with Merlin. In short, it doesn’t matter that “young boy” becomes “young man” in the opening line of the later series; Merlin is still running to Gaius and the Dragon for advice right through the finale. This is a wholly inappropriate position for a character renowned for his _wisdom_ to be in, but it is the only way to keep his ability to change the status quo under wraps. Any time Merlin _does_ become a force for progress, Gaius or the Dragon will be firmly against it, and if Merlin ignores them, the results are invariably disastrous—even if it makes no sense for that to be the case. Most telling of all, Gaius and the Dragon are fond of nothing more than teaching Merlin that he has one choice—or that he has no choice—or that there is only one way that something can be done.

We have already explored how unyielding the words of the Great Dragon are when it comes to the idea of Destiny. It is also the case that the Dragon having Merlin’s ear is a set and final situation, no matter what the Dragon does or what Merlin actually wants. At the end of Series 1, after Merlin has gone to him for advice in every episode, the Dragon reveals his true motive for helping Merlin: “Only then [when Arthur is King] will I be free!” A betrayed Merlin vows never to visit the Dragon again—but as in so many other things, he has no choice in who his advisors will be. The very next episode, when Cornelius Sigan is besieging Camelot, Gaius insists that Merlin visit the Dragon again. “We have no choice,” Gaius says—if Merlin does not speak to the Dragon, Camelot will fall. When Merlin does visit him, the Dragon exacts a promise in return for his help: one day, Merlin must free the Dragon. This is nothing less than a dictate to the young sorcerer: “You must promise, or Camelot will fall!” Merlin tries to avoid this for as long as he can, but in the end, the Dragon’s voice starts shouting at Merlin inside his head (2x11). Finally, toward the end of Series 2, all of Camelot falls under an enchanted sleep, and Merlin has no choice but to release the Dragon in 2x12, or else—you guessed it—all of Camelot will fall. However, the Dragon _still_ doesn’t exert enough control over Merlin for the show’s liking, so Merlin is given another non-choice to deal with: the Dragon is adamant that the only way to cure the sleeping spell is to poison Morgana. Whether this is really the only cure, or whether the Dragon suggests this because he has always disliked Morgana and called her a “witch,” we do not know; Gaius is helpfully asleep at the time, so Merlin can’t go to him for a second opinion. As before, if Merlin does not try to murder Morgana, all of Camelot will fall…again. He reluctantly poisons her; he reluctantly releases the Dragon; and then is forced to watch in impotent horror as Morgana turns evil and the Dragon goes on a rampage, killing over a hundred people.

Throughout all of this, we could say, “Merlin did have a choice; he just made a tough one,” or “Merlin did have a choice; he just got bad advice.” But the writing doesn’t bear this out. Merlin doesn’t tell Morgause he’s making this choice of his own free will and accepting all the responsibility that comes with it. Gaius doesn’t tell Merlin that he’s proud of his ward for making a tough call. “I had to,” Merlin says to Morgause…and then, insisting on this in the very same scene, “You gave me no choice” (2x12). Gaius backs this idea up in 3x01, saying, “You had no choice…the kingdom was dying.” Notice that this logic also applies to Merlin releasing the Great Dragon, because the circumstances under which he acts are exactly the same—Camelot will fall if he does not free Kilgharrah. Since Merlin truly has no choice in his actions, we cannot defend this plot by saying it’s here to further character growth. Quite the contrary: if Merlin does not listen to the Dragon now, there’s a good chance that he’ll stand on his own two feet more often and break out of his underappreciated mold. What’s more, if Merlin does not betray Morgana, she might start to follow a unique character path that the Legend had not laid out for her. These forced choices only exist to compel the show to stay safely within its comfortable boundaries, reinventing the Legend be damned.

When Merlin subdues the Dragon at last in 2x13, Kilgharrah begs for mercy, which Merlin grants—showing both how grown-up he is and that he is an authority figure in his own right. Even the Dragon remarks on it: “Young warlock, what you have shown is what you will be.” If this show were truly about Merlin’s journey to become the greatest sorcerer ever to live, his actions at the end of Series 2 would have been a turning point. Merlin would have followed his own instincts more often and been right more of the time as the show went on. Unfortunately, just as in the Series 1 finale, the Series 2 finale is incapable of separating Merlin from the Dragon when he clearly should be. In fact, after the Dragon heals Merlin from a serket’s venom one episode later, Merlin conveys only his respectful gratitude to the creature that rained destruction on the very city he was trying to protect! The Dragon then plops right back into his advisory role as if nothing had happened. He never apologizes for his actions in Camelot, Merlin never brings it up again, and the Dragon doesn’t let his mass murder spree prevent him from lecturing Merlin, expecting Merlin to follow all of his prophecies without question, and indulging in bouts of righteous indignation.

The presence of the Dragon in Merlin’s life is mandatory, and the effect he has on Merlin’s character development is shocking. If we recall, Merlin spends the entirety of the second series fighting the Dragon’s advice about Morgana: that she is a witch, that it is better if she never learns of her powers, that she will unite in evil with the boy destined to doom Arthur. Torn between pleasing his father figure(s) and what his conscience tells him, Merlin tries to help Morgana as best he can, but never comes out and convinces Morgana that she is accepted in Camelot. The result, of course, is that Morgana defects to the dark side. Yet what message does Merlin take away from this? Is it, “Oh, if only I had trusted Morgana with everything, I could have saved her!”? Far from it: “I should have listened to you,” says Merlin to the Dragon. “I should have never trusted Morgana.” Merlin says this even when he _never did trust Morgana_ because he did not reveal his magic to her—though she had magic as well! The wise Great Dragon, instead of correcting this obvious mistake, tells Merlin this: “Trust is a double-edged sword….You have learned an important lesson, Merlin. Your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing.”

First, not only is Merlin’s mistaken conclusion not corrected; the lesson Merlin learns is one of blind trust in an authority figure and distrust of others (even himself) _._ Then the Dragon goes a step further, implying that Merlin seeing goodness in people is a _weakness_ —a lesson that is both worse than the first one and completely untrue. Arthur’s (and therefore Merlin’s) downfall comes about when Merlin sacrifices magical freedom in what he thinks is a bid to save Arthur by killing Mordred—which dooms Arthur anyway by the judgment of the Disir. It is not Merlin’s determination to see _goodness_ in Mordred where there is none, but _badness_ where there is none, that is his undoing. And this determination to see Mordred as an enemy comes directly from the advice of the Great Dragon: “You had a chance to kill the Druid boy once before. If you have another, you MUST not fail!” (5x05). Kilgharrah leads Merlin to more than one conclusion that is not only morally repugnant, but false. If the Dragon’s only goal is to be restrictive, then his presence in _Merlin_ makes sense, but if not, why do the creators give _this_ creature the keys to Destiny?

The interactions between Merlin and the Great Dragon provide more than enough evidence that the creators took an opportunity for character growth and squashed it flat for the sake of keeping Merlin dependent on their reptilian mouthpiece. The show’s treatment of the Great Dragon is even more astounding considering the parallels with King Uther. Both characters suffer an undeserved trauma, losing the ones they love most, and in their maddened grief, they take revenge on a whole group of people, most of whom had nothing to do with the original events. Yet only one of these characters is regularly criticized and retaliated against because of his decisions. The other is Merlin’s mainstay for counsel, even at the very end of the show. In Merlin’s last conversation in the Series 5 finale, he is _still_ looking to the Dragon for advice—after, naturally, going to Gaius for advice first and getting a “There is only one way to save Arthur” answer. And what is the Dragon’s reply? _Merlin…there is nothing you can do._ Of course there isn’t; there never was.

A tyrant rules through control and fear, and the tyranny that runs through _Merlin_ is no different. If, then, the Great Dragon functions as the tight-fisted control that Destiny has over its puppets, the function of Gaius is to embody and encourage a deep-seated fear that someone will upset the established order. A staunch defender of keeping things as they are in Camelot, from Day 1 Gaius wants Merlin to protect Uther’s reign, no matter who might get hurt in doing so. When Uther is sick because his brain is infected with magical beetles, Gaius urges Merlin to heal Uther personally. Two episodes later, Gaius tells Merlin to side with the King and let Mordred—still a child—die, even though Gaius is unaware of the Dragon’s prophecy against Mordred. In 2x05, Gaius tells Merlin to use magic in front of the King to get rid of a troll’s enchantment, even though Merlin risks exposure before the entire court. In 3x02, Gaius helps Merlin heal the King from the mandrake root Morgana placed under his bed, despite the fact that Uther’s nightmares about the people he has killed are well-deserved. In 3x11, Gaius even recommends that Merlin use magic to prevent Gilli from killing the King in a tournament, though it places in mortal peril a boy who had earlier saved Merlin from a beating.

Why would a wise mentor advocate the preservation of Uther’s reign? The answer, as Gaius informs Merlin in 1x12, is that Uther brings two unimpeachable virtues to Camelot: peaceandprosperity. Who, after all, could jeopardize peace and prosperity for the sake of a little thing like equal rights? This question of Uther’s legitimacy comes at a time when Gaius hints that Merlin should protect Uther from magical assassins, even after Uther murders Gwen’s father. When Merlin asks what this means for the persecution of magic, Gaius replies, “It will end when Arthur is King,” reinforcing Kilgharrah’s prophecy and again justifying the long wait with a far-off promise of payoff. To Gaius’ way of thinking, biding his time with Merlin is a win-win situation: he can keep himself and Merlin out of danger, watch Merlin’s friendship with Arthur strengthen, wait until Uther dies, then slowly but surely change Arthur’s mind, all with minimal risk for everyone involved and rich rewards to be gained. Gaius convinces Merlin that by securing Uther’s kingdom, they are securing Arthur’s as well, and by extension the supposed wellbeing of magicians in the future. And it is of course merely coincidence that while Uther is firmly in power, sorcery is still outlawed, Merlin’s magic is still secret, and Destiny can rule as overlord not only in principle but in application.

When defending Gaius’ philosophy as the best or only choice in these circumstances, we run into three inescapable problems. First, the persecution of magicians does _not_ end when Arthur is King, a serious misjudgment that _no one in the show_ calls Gaius out on. Second, just because one wants to protect Camelot doesn’t mean one can’t agitate for magicians’ rights covertly. Does Gaius, for all his wisdom, ever soften Arthur’s stance on magic—or even teach Merlin how to do so with success? For instance, every time Arthur’s life is saved while he’s unconscious, Merlin could leave that blue ball of light for him to find: a signature, like The Blur’s symbol on _Smallville_. Merlin wouldn’t be putting himself forward, since a) he’s still anonymous and b) 1x13 shows that Arthur already thinks he has a secret guardian. Or, why not persuade Arthur of magic’s good using a person out of his reach? Merlin could expand on his past friendship with the supposed sorcerer Will, using Will as an analogy for himself—“Will” had been born with magic; “Will” had no choice in the matter; magic was as much a part of “Will” as his own eyes. The Fisher King is dead and cannot be harmed; Merlin could tell Arthur that the latter was willing to help all of Albion. For that matter, so did the Lady of the Lake—and we don’t have to reveal that Merlin has magic, just that magical people reached out to him because they were afraid Arthur wouldn’t listen. What about Arthur learning that Merlin’s father was Balinor after the latter dies? After all, Balinor saved Arthur’s life, and even died for Merlin; despite what Gaius says, it would actually be a good halfway point to Arthur accepting Merlin’s magic, because Arthur would plainly see that Merlin’s lineage wasn’t his fault. What about the spirits who healed Merlin in 4x02? If both Merlin and Lancelot said that they were magically healed without negative repercussions, it might go a long way into changing Arthur’s mind. It’s hard to see how either Uther or Arthur could hurt those, and Arthur wouldn’t just write Merlin off as an idiot if Lancelot backed him up.

There’s a real chance these could lead Arthur to become more tolerant, and the worst Merlin risks is Arthur getting irritated or asking awkward questions—two things that Merlin _already puts up with_ on a regular basis. But Gaius never steers Merlin toward these or any other openings (and, really, there weren’t any? Not a single opening in the whole decade they knew each other?). We might say, “Merlin didn’t want it to look like he was using his friendship with Arthur to influence him.” But if Merlin won’t use persuasion, and he won’t display his powers openly, and he won’t tell Arthur about any other good magicians…exactly what are we left with that will change Arthur’s mind? The answer is: nothing. And here we have the third problem: Gaius takes no action to facilitate his endgame of Merlin and magic out in the open. He fails in his obligation as Merlin’s mentor to prepare Merlin for the realities of being a leader and bringing change about. That is, after all, what Merlin must become—the Druids, the Catha, and even Kilgharrah acknowledge his authority as Emrys. Yet what could Merlin say to win over the everyday magic users in Camelot? With Merlin refraining from influencing Arthur, and his use of magic almost exclusively restricted to Arthur’s defense, how can Merlin convince magic users that he is a bridge between two peoples? His resume consists solely of “protected Pendragons from magical reprisals,” hardly a beacon to those who’ve suffered twenty years of persecution. What’s more, Gaius’ “wait for the right opportunity” strategy relies on him informing Merlin that the right opportunity _exists_. Does he ever tell Merlin that the time is right for Arthur to know of his magic? Yes, once—when Arthur is dying and it is too late for him to lift the ban on magic. There is a reason Merlin acted as he did, rashly or not, in 4x03: Gaius never gives Merlin the go-ahead at a point in time when genuine change is possible.

This is no model for freedom; and no wonder. Despite what he may say, Gaius is _not_ teaching Merlin to protect Arthur’s kingdom so the latter can free magicians. He is teaching Merlin to uphold the reign of King Uther in a way that ensures Arthur’s stance on magic will mirror his father’s—a peaceful, prosperous, despotic progression. If this seems unexpected or out of character for Gaius, remember that in 1x13, we find out that his _modus operandi_ during the Great Purge was to save himself and his closest friends while letting everyone else burn. It seems that, with the Purge’s end, his methods have not greatly altered. This does not make him a villain, but it does mean he should not hold the status of unimpeachable mentor to Merlin. He certainly should not symbolize a father’s positive influence over his son as opposed to Uther’s negative influence over his. If Merlin is supposed to learn how to be a wise sage from Gaius, what Gaius teaches him is that wisdom is about hiding in the shadows and hoping that the problem will somehow fix itself, without ever seizing an opportunity to really change things. Progress to Gaius is an unstable enemy—but again, as with the Great Dragon, Gaius is treated as a foil for Uther instead of a parallel for him. Yes, Gaius demonstrates affection for the boy he looks on as a son; did King Uther do any less for Arthur? And was Gaius’ influence over his son ultimately any less damaging than the King’s?

Consider this episode: 4x03, a perfect example of “soft” Destiny at work. Partway through “The Wicked Day,” Odin’s assassin mortally wounds King Uther, and magic is the only thing that will cure him. Arthur knows this, and tentatively suggests its use to Merlin. Arthur agrees to meet with an old sorcerer who is Merlin in disguise, and ends up agreeing to lift the ban on magic if he saves the life of Arthur’s father. Now, until this point, Merlin has dutifully towed the “Keep the Magic Secret” line, with Gaius’ unending encouragement. He has hidden in the shadows, saving Arthur’s life one day at a time, always unrecognized, always without a chance to free his people. Here at last is the perfect chance to fulfill his destiny. He can show Arthur that not all magic is evil; in disguise, he even hints at a day when he can reveal his true nature to Arthur: “I know you have suffered because of magic, as many have. But not all magic, and not all sorcerers, are the same. I wish only to show you that magic can be used for good. I hope one day you’ll see me in a different light.” This is truly an ideal episode to pay off the show’s build-up for the audience—at this point, the fans have watched Merlin’s thankless endeavors for so long that they need a taste of the promised bright future. The two-parter just before this episode is “The Darkest Hour,” implying that the dawn after the darkest hour is just about to arrive. Finally, after more than three series of no forward movement, there is a chance for the theme of freeing the land from tyranny to shine.

The fear Gaius has of actively changing Arthur’s stance on magic is palpable. “Do you think Uther is going to thank you for healing him with magic?” Gaius lectures Merlin. “He’s more likely to have you hanged…You of all people should know that the use of powerful magic is fraught with danger…I can’t stand by and watch you do this…You’re playing a dangerous game, Merlin.” Gaius’ words, all contained in the space of a single scene, are almost verging on panic. He repeatedly emphasizes that Merlin is taking a chance; that he’s sticking his neck out; that his actions could have serious ramifications. In other words, he is discouraging everything that the show itself is afraid of doing. Now, we could attribute his objections merely to being cautious, save for one thing: that long list of times Gaius _wanted_ Merlin to protect Uther using magic, regardless of the dangers involved. Gaius’ concern about Merlin healing Uther with magic was nowhere to be found when Merlin was using Edwin’s beetles, or spellcasting in front of the court, or freeing the King from his guilt-riddled dreams…even though Merlin takes the precaution of disguising himself in _none_ of those cases, and he _is_ disguising himself here. Though Gaius is apt to forbid Merlin to use his magic to help his friends or other magic users, he is _always_ ready to urge Merlin on when it comes to using magic to cure the King…except now.

Coincidentally, during those earlier episodes it was in the creators’ interests to keep Uther alive, since as the antithesis of progress, he represents all the things the show values most. Here, where Uther’s life would come with magical freedom attached, his survival would undermine all the complacency that they’d worked so hard to attain. And it is here that, in perfect harmony with the creators’ interests, Gaius chooses to have a sudden about-face when it comes to his stance on Uther’s wellbeing. As if to underscore why the show is doing this, when Merlin points out that if he doesn’t take this opportunity, he may have to live the rest of his life without revealing his magic, Gaius has no answer for him. That’s because there _is_ no answer for him. Gaius has _no desire_ to offer an alternative at any point in the show. This is the wise physician attempting to run for cover until the opportunity for real change has passed.

Now comes the moment when Gaius is proven right in the face of any rhyme or reason. Morgana creates a pendant after she learns of Arthur’s plan to heal the King with magic; she says Agravaine _must_ place it around Uther’s neck in order to reverse Merlin’s healing spell. This charm is less than a foot away from Merlin when he is leaning over the King, yet he never senses the pendant’s magic, even after the charm begins to work. This goes against everything we’ve ever seen about Merlin and magical objects. Merlin’s ability to sense powerful enchantments is not a haphazard talent, subject to the whim of the writing as so many other things are; it has more continuity behind it than any other featureof his magic. From the Mage Stone (1x12), to the Crystal of Neahtid (2x11), to the mandrake root (3x01), to the rowan staff (3x02), to the Eye of the Phoenix (3x08), he is always able to sense magical items—the last object being, if we recall, a bracelet that _Morgana enchanted herself_. This one time, and no other, Merlin fails to sense a magical charm also enchanted by Morgana and powerful enough to reverse and magnify his magic tenfold. The only reason for Merlin not to have sensed the pendant is if it weren’t actually there in the scene with him (which may be true, as it’s apparently invisible even with Uther’s shirt open).

Unhappily, although the pendant not being there in the first place would be the perfect excuse for Merlin not having sensed it, the show brazenly tells us not to believe our lying eyes. This charm that we can’t see, and that Merlin can’t see, is clearly visible to Gaius, who uses both glasses and reading stones on the show to emphasize his failing eyesight. Ever the helpful instrument of control, he shows the pendant to Merlin after the damage has already been done and, to leave no room for doubt, tells Merlin that the pendant was—against all reason—around Uther’s neck. Arthur is crowned King, now hating magic even more than he used to, and the comfort level of the Powers that Be has been restored to normal. When all else fails, this is what _Merlin_ resorts to: narrating events in complete contradiction to what should play out logically, because when it comes to preventing the occurrence of a game-changing event, nothing else is sacred. In its own way, the show is as paranoid about letting magic gain a foothold in Camelot as Uther.

Now secure in the knowledge that the winds of change have passed, the episode gleefully launches into a series of scenes in which Merlin is tortured by guilt for daring to try and change the status quo. He laments that this is all his fault, to which Gaius replies that in a roundabout way, Morgana really killed Uther, since he died inside when she broke his heart. A better way of lifting the guilt from Merlin would have been to _share_ it…to point out that if Gaius had supported Merlin enough in his decision to stand with him, that suddenly keen eyesight of his would have come in very handy when the pendant was killing Uther. At the very least, since Gaius was so certain that Merlin’s plan would fail, a man as wise as he should have had a backup plan in case Uther did die or Morgana somehow intervened. But even more than this, what the episode needed was a parallel revelation between Merlin and Arthur about their respective father figures. Just as Arthur slowly learns that not everything his father does is right, and that sometimes defying him is in the best interests of his people, Merlin could take a hard look at the Gaius of 4x03 and see that his wise older mentor is not infallible—that it is not the first time Gaius has done a disservice to his and Merlin’s magical kin, and it likely won’t be the last. Just as Uther only cares about saving Arthur, even at the cost of the kingdom, in a pinch, Gaius wants to save Merlin, and the rest of the kingdom can burn. It is the kind of thinking that has no place in Arthur’s Camelot, and Albion’s only chance at unity lies in freeing itself from that system of values.

Sadly, freedom (especially of the magical kind) is not the message of this show. When Merlin dutifully follows Gaius’ advice to save King Uther, Gaius praises him and the music backs him up. When Merlin branches out on his own, going against the advice of his mentor, and tries to strike a blow for magical rights, he is punished. If the _Merlin_ creators truly valued the idea, “The destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young man,” we would have seen his initiative pay off. Instead, when Merlin really tries to make a choice of his own, the situation in Camelot moves backward instead of forward in a chain of events so contrived that they are, dare we say, destined. Again, Merlin didn’t do anything wrong except to challenge the direction the show was determined to take. Neither, in spite of what Gaius implies, is it at all riskier than what he’s been doing all along. In fact, when Gaius fearfully reminds Merlin that he’s playing a dangerous game, Merlin replies, “I’ve been playing a dangerous game ever since I first came to Camelot”—to which Gaius again has no answer. Merlin only fails in order to keep the show’s premise under control, and the only reason he is punished is because he ever tried to succeed.

If Kilgharrah’s lessons to Merlin are _don’t try to save people_ and _don’t try to see goodness in them_ , Gaius’ lesson to Merlin is: _if you try to press for progress in Camelot,you and everyone you love will get hurt._ This is the first fear of any police state: that if events progress beyond its control, things will get worse; people will get hurt; the structure over which it assumes absolute power will be insecure. But in taking action to suppress this fear, the tyrant stifles what is necessary to the human soul: optimism, creativity, and healthy rebellion. So we can see the debilitating price Gaius’ lesson exacts on Merlin. Throughout the rest of Series 4 and 5, the bright-eyed, animated youth we’d been shown in the earlier series is nowhere to be found. Merlin is older, grimmer, quicker on the magical trigger, and much more world-weary. In Series 5, Arthur is King, Gwen is Queen, Morgana leads an army, and Merlin is…Arthur’s manservant. Arthur wears his crown, Gwen wears velvet and brocade, Morgana wears black clothes and enchanted jewelry, and Merlin…wears the exact same clothes he’s always worn. Arthur has the Round Table, Gwen rules at his side, Morgana has her own castle, and Merlin…leads nothing, despite all the Druids and Catha waiting for him to build the world he promised.

Of course, the creators still need a reason for Merlin to stay with Arthur, now that the prophecy has come undone and Merlin’s obligation to it is over (remember, he only has to protect Arthur until Arthur is King); and it must have been a great relief for them to realize that keeping Merlin under tight control for years on end would now work in their favor. You see, by this time Merlin has sacrificed so much for his dream of Albion that he has too much to lose by backing out, even without a real chance of moving things forward. He has devoted six years of his life to serving Arthur, and Camelot is now his home. All of his friends are in Camelot, and the fact that the show has cut him off from all friendly magical contact means that there is no one he can go to for outside help. He can only continue to dog Arthur’s footsteps, hoping that his destiny won’t die, because he’s invested his entire life in this dream, and if he runs away now, everything he’s done will have been in vain. Merlin as a character is a victim of nothing less than narrative subjugation.

Yet even though it is plain that the creators have no intention of making the intended journey from hidden magic to openly practiced magic, they _still_ wiggle the idea of Albion in front of the audience. The episode directly following 4x03 contains the first appearance of the dragon Aithusa, whom Merlin names after the light of the sun. As if this name weren’t sufficiently symbolic, the Great Dragon says he believes Aithusa _bodes well_ for the land Merlin and Arthur will build together. The Dragon ends up being very badly wrong about Aithusa—this dragon ends up joining forces with Morgana and then enchanting the sword that kills Arthur in the finale. Naturally, no one blames the Great Dragon for such an obvious misstep, but even without that, the problem with this alleged ray of sunshine is that you can only dash an audience’s hopes so many times before hope becomes a pipe dream—or even worse, a running gag. By 4x04, Merlin hiding his magic has gone from “subverting expectations” to being _exactly_ what we expect from the show and its creators. The idea of hidden magic was thought-provoking at the start because it raised the question of _how_ the creators were going to reconcile magic being outlawed with the magical Camelot of legend. Now, with yet another series of Merlin keeping the magic secret, the show has no new ground to break; and the only way to subvert audience expectations at this point would be, ironically, to fulfill them. Still, the showrunners merrily propagandize the supposedly bright future in later episodes such as “His Father’s Son,” “A Herald of a New Age,” “The Sword in the Stone,” and “The Death Song of Uther Pendragon.” Arthur proves he is different from his father; Arthur promises to respect the Druids more; Arthur proves himself the rightful king of Camelot; Arthur throws off the ghost of his father and resolves to run the kingdom his way…and _still_ Merlin hides his gift and nothing changes.

This is the message of _Merlin_ , and it is a far cry from taking risks to change things up: _it is better to maintain the status quo than to risk **anything** to change it_. The show’s treatment of magic reflects this clearly: the creators spent episode after episode showing us how horrible things are with magic outlawed, how terrible it is that Merlin is forced to be Arthur’s servant, how great a strain the secrets place on their friendship, and how much damage Uther is doing as King. But having emphasized, over and over, what was wrong with the state of things, not only did they defend it vigorously against any invasion by progress; they were willing to sacrifice to it every other good idea. It’s as if they valued Camelot’s worst qualities the most and sought to enshrine them rather than overcome them. And when fans didn’t embrace as desirable and permanent a status quo _never depicted as either_ , the creators could only reiterate that Arthur finding out about Merlin’s magic was not the point of the show. (Naturally, no “real point” of the show was given in its place.) Clearly, while we were supposed to fall in love with Merlin and Arthur’s desire to change the future, we weren’t actually supposed to expect such things from the show itself.

Thus, far from being an idea that is dealt with in a unique and interesting way, in the end, magical liberation is shunted aside as an afterthought. This was a major divergence of the show from the Legend, a mark of its supposed independence from a standard retelling, but thanks to the iron-handed control over Merlin and his powers, it turned into a plot point of trivial importance. We never see anyone legalize magic; there is no proclamation of past wrongs, no scene of magical people being allowed to practice openly in the streets, no Druids returning to Camelot, no Merlin standing at Arthur’s side as the High King’s magical advisor. Nor are there any further scenes of magic being persecuted or magic being extinguished at the show’s end; this central facet of _Merlin_ is never touched upon beyond Arthur’s personal acceptance of Merlin’s magic—and since Merlin and Arthur were the only two people present, it could have no effect at all on Albion as a whole. The opening prophecy with respect to magic, the words of the Great Dragon that propelled Merlin to do great and terrible things, are never alluded to, and we are left wondering why we watched Merlin being shackled to Camelot and spending ten years as a servant when nothing was ever going to come of it. Frankly, if viewers had known ahead of time that Merlin wasn’t going to reveal his magic to Arthur until the last episode, that sorcery would never be legalized during Arthur’s reign, and that the greatest warlock of the age would spend virtually all of his ten-year career doing menial chores, they would have fled in droves. But not allowing magic to get out of hand was even more important to _Merlin_ ’s creators than satisfying the audience.

There are a few arguments to justify the way magic was treated in the finale, all of which can be dispensed with easily:

  * **Gwen says “I am pleased” after she finds out that Merlin is the sorcerer who protected Arthur, so that means the prophecy was fulfilled.** To believe that a woman who watched her best friend succumb to evil magic and who was herself a recent victim of magical possession would then bring about the liberation of all magicians, solely based on secondhand knowledge (via a former sorcerer) of Merlin’s actions to protect Arthur, _when those actions failed_ , is dubious. To believe that Gwen ushering in greater tolerance for magicians fulfills the prophecy of _Arthur_ uniting Albion and returning magic to the land is illogical. And to believe that a commoner queen with only two Round Table knights left, no heir, no king, no living ties to the nobility, no ties at all to the magical community, and an army decimated by the Saxons, could command enough authority to stop magical persecution when we’ve seen peasants defy King Arthur _at the height of his power_ in order to burn a witch, is the height of absurdity.
  * **The lack of a Series 6 made it necessary to speed up the course of the show—it wasn’t fear of fulfilling their premise that made the creators cut out magic’s return, but time constraints.** If the show’s end in Series 5 _was_ unexpected, the clear choice would have been to cut out the fall of Camelot and Arthur’s death, because _that_ is in the legends and can be implied, but _Merlin_ ’s take on magic has no legendary equivalent _._ Furthermore, the show’s original premise made it very clear to viewers that this was an alternative universe _prequel_ to the Arthurian Legend. The creators were never obliged to complete the story of the Arthurian Legend—and we never expected them to. But we _did_ expect them to bring a unique concept that _they themselves introduced_ to a satisfying conclusion. And if there was only time in the end for magic’s rise or Camelot’s fall, we should have seen the former.
  * **The acceptance of magic is not necessary to a satisfying conclusion because we still see the golden age of Camelot, even with magic as the enemy.** The creators poked holes in this defense themselves by repeatedly tying magic’s return _directly_ to the idea of Camelot’s golden age, not only through the various prophecies and symbols we have seen, but through their choice of main character in this story. No matter what they wanted to tell us about Camelot having a golden age—even a tiny three-year golden age off-screen—the fact that we see Camelot through the eyes of Merlin means that the specter of magical persecution overshadows anything else Arthur might have accomplished. We never see Arthur’s reign improve Merlin’s life or the lives of anyone around him (except Guinevere, who is exempt from this and many other rules governing the lives of characters in the show). Nor do we see Merlin return to Camelot after Morgana’s defeat, so if against all odds Camelot _does_ rise to become great after Arthur’s death, we are denied that satisfaction just as surely as Merlin is. Merlin never feels as if he is living in a golden age, and we never feel as if we are witnessing one.
  * **There _is_ a satisfying conclusion to the issue of magic in the tragedy of Camelot’s fall because it would not respect sorcerers.** The problem here is that you can only show the _fall_ of a dream if you actually allow it to _rise._ Would the fall of Troy have resonated in so many stories if it had been only a middling city instead of a magnificent one? Would Troy’s fall have been so tragic if the most that could be said of it before it fell was that someone _hoped_ it would be great one day? A Camelot that starts with no magic and ends with no magic—in a world where it is clear that Camelot cannot be an ideal kingdom without it—is no tragic kingdom; it is an underachieving one. It is the very opposite of the spirit behind the Camelot of legend. The legendary Arthur’s Camelot strove for perfection—and although it had its fall from grace, the Camelot of _Merlin_ is far weaker for not ever having made the attempt. Not only can it not shine; the pall cast over Series 5 is not so much a fall into darkness as it is a dip into a slightly darker shadow than the shadow under which the people of Camelot were already dwelling.



The absence of payoff for Merlin and his magic in the show is perplexing—unless, of course, payoff was never Destiny’s intent. This would seem absurd for a show so focused on (and proud of) its unique approach to magic. But what if the goal of adding this element to the Arthurian Legend wasn’t to fortify the premise, but to have the show stay in the same place for as long as possible until all was safely over? What if this idea was designed to control Merlin, to check him and his powers for fear he might get out of hand? Trying to piece together an honest trajectory for the show’s take on magic is an exercise in futility, but if we take the position that control _itself_ was the creators’ first and only concern in this prophecy, suddenly the pieces fall into place. It explains the addition of something that the Legend didn’t need, that was never paid off in the show, and that kept the main character in his place for longer than was healthy for legend, show, or character. The tagline “Keep the magic secret” fulfilled its purpose in the end, except that its purpose was not to “subvert expectations” as the creators originally advertised. Instead of existing to make the show different, it was added to keep the show invested in _sameness_ , one series of increasing banality after another. And once it had achieved that objective, the creators had no use for it and dropped the carrot they had dangled in front of our noses off at the nearest garbage bin.

Recognizing that, with respect to the liberation of magic, there was a huge disconnect between what was promised and what was delivered, the creators did the only thing they could: they used the Great Dragon as the mouthpiece of “We totally kept our word!” propaganda. Despite the Dragon’s assertions in 5x10 that he is dying, which is the only explanation for why Merlin didn’t call him to take Arthur to the Lake of Avalon in time, we see the Dragon flapping both of his wings as he flies toward Merlin, apparently unhurt. Why does the Dragon show up now, introducing a gaping plothole and contributing nothing to help save the day? He is here so that when Merlin admits that he failed in his destiny, he can proclaim, “No, young warlock, for all that you have dreamt of building has come to pass” (5x13). The very fact that the Dragon has to _tell_ us this means that it is not otherwise apparent to the audience—certainly not after Arthur, Gwaine, Mordred, and Morgana all die and only Gwen is left to rule. Some will be tempted to use the Dragon’s speech as proof that magic will return, but at the moment when Merlin’s destiny supposedly _has come_ to pass, magic is still not legal in Camelot and Arthur has neither returned magic to the land nor presided over a truly free kingdom. Even if we assume that what the Dragon meant was that it _will_ come to pass, there is no way the Dragon could know that. He was not in the throne room when Gwen said “I’m pleased,” and there is no prophecy about _Gwen_ returning magic to the land, or Merlin would have spent all these years protecting _her_ instead.

What’s more, if the creators thought that viewers would feel cheated with anything other than a tragic _Merlin_ ending, why is this scene here? The Dragon’s out-of-the-blue appearance, wedged awkwardly between Arthur’s death scene and Merlin laying Arthur to rest, is contrary in both tone and content to the finale’s atmosphere and _undermines_ the tragedy, if anything. This is especially apparent when, eyes alight with glee, Kilgharrah concludes, “The story we have been a part of will live long in the minds of men!” Triumphant music starts playing over his words, jarringly at odds with the image we see of Merlin clutching Arthur’s broken body in front of him. Since the only story that “we” (meaning Merlin and the Dragon) are both a part of is _Merlin_ itself, this is the Dragon interrupting the tragedy of the finale, not to do anything useful, but to sell the show’s merits and portray it as a _t riumph_. This is nothing more than a clumsy attempt to deceive us into thinking that what we see is wrong—in that particular, insulting, “Because we say so!” way with which we’ve become so sadly familiar.

But let us do the most unreasonable thing of all: let us pretend that what the creators tell us is true. Arthur somehow united the land of Albion and brought about the liberation of magic, and all that Merlin has dreamt of building has come to pass. If that is true, then what the show says is this: support a monarch who brings stability to the land, no matter what. For the sake of his more progressive heir, support him against anyone who is being persecuted by him. Protect his heir, not only from those with legitimate quarrels against the reigning government, but from any truth that rears its head over the monarch’s worst sins (killing children, being a hypocrite, etc.). If a rebellion exists fueled by justified anger, yet uses the same methods as the monarch, never, _ever_ acknowledge to the monarch or his heir that the root cause of this rebellion should be addressed. And when this heir has been fed lies from both you and the monarch about who his enemies are and whether a downtrodden group is evil, and as a result makes no attempt for years on end to rectify this injustice…still support that heir, no matter what, with no criticism of the most important issue that he has failed to address. If you do all this, children, guess what?  It will lead to a golden age where freedom reigns! If that sounds like the most absurd and dangerous doctrine you’ve ever heard in your life, that’s only because dragons and unicorns and trolls are far more realistic than this is.

Gaius and the Great Dragon, and all they represent, have wrought a considerable path of destruction through the original ideas and spirit behind both the Legend and the show. They have all but squeezed the life out of the title character. Yet this is not the worst of it: now that we’ve reached the end, let us step back and realize that this intrepid pair does not even have a legendary right to be here. These two spokesmen for Destiny are completely original characters and never featured in the Arthurian Legend—the only original characters to be granted such huge roles. _Merlin_ had the freedom to graft any original characters it wanted onto the Legend—and out of anyone they could have added, the creators chose to add _them_. If nothing else, this gives us a fascinating insight into the nature of the show itself: since we can subtract the Legend from their presence entirely, it is in their nature that we see the character of _Merlin_ , boiled down to its very essence. The picture, unfortunately, does not reflect an actual creative renouncement of tyranny; one might almost call it the opposite.

Going one level above this, from the prophets to the prophecies, let us return to the five main dicta of Destiny and see how they played out in the show:

  * **Arthur is the Once and Future King.** If he is, we are never shown it; we have only the Great Dragon’s word that Arthur will rise again.
  * **Arthur will unite the Land of Albion.** There is no indication that this happened. Arthur’s allies do not encompass the whole of Albion, and they’re all still separate kingdoms—a confederacy, rather than a union, of which Arthur is _not_ High King. And even if he were, the fact that Arthur never lifts the ban on magic means that he still leaves behind a deeply divided land. As for the idea of Albion extending beyond prophecy, the concept gets but a single name-drop during Arthur’s speech at Camlann; one almost expects the knights to look at each other, baffled, as they try to figure out what an Albion is.
  * **Arthur will not succeed without Merlin.** This implies that Arthur will succeed _with_ Merlin, but he didn’t. Merlin didn’t help him lift the ban on magic; Merlin didn’t help him unite the land of Albion; Merlin had no bearing on whether or not Arthur would rise again. Even the writer of the finale admits that Arthur dies and that he _fails._
  * **Merlin must protect Arthur until he claims his crown.** This part was of the prophecy was fulfilled.
  * **When that happens, magic can return to the realm.** Magic did not return to the realm when Arthur was King.



Notice that the _only_ point that is demonstrably true is the one that compels a character to take a certain action, _not_ the part of the prophecy that requires Destiny hold up its end of the bargain. After all, if you are a dictator, who has the power to compel you to fulfill your promises? The point is that you made an edict, and now your subjects are forced to abide by it. Under no circumstances are you bound by your own rules, any more than Uther felt himself bound by the rules against magic when the situation was dire. As for the show’s end, Merlin, who defied the Great Dragon so early and often, is now left dependent on the Great Dragon’s words for the entire meaning of his life. We see him shuffling obediently around the lake, hoping that Arthur will rise again. And like always, _fulfillment_ of this prophecy is inconsequential; heaven forbid the creators depict Arthur rising from the dead, because that would leave them with the hated task of trying to come up with something original and creative. Where Destiny is concerned, _dependency_ , not fulfillment, is the entire point and always was.

Can we write all this off as simply a vehicle for tragedy? Perhaps we could, if we defined tragedy only as an unhappy ending, or as only eliminating a character’s choices. But classical tragedy—the kind that involves Destiny—revolves around this idea: no matter what you choose, your fate is the same. With the outcome predestined and not in dispute, the conflict in these stories is between the fated ending and the choices the characters make to get there. Indeed, the more a character struggles against Fate, the more potent the tragedy is. Tragedy _needs_ conflict—it _needs_ choice—to succeed. If you take the freedom of choice away and _still_ have the fated ending, where is the tension? Your story is no more tragic than stabbing a cadaver. Likewise, what we have seen from the show is that Merlin can’t choose his journey _or_ his destination…so what is the point of the trip? By repeatedly cutting Merlin’s right to make real choices out from under him, the creators change the _Merlin_ ending from tragic to _obvious._ If Merlin “had no choice” but to free the Great Dragon, and he “had no choice” but to poison Morgana, and he “cannot choose his destiny” and he “cannot escape it”…if he cannot choose his friends, nor his enemies, nor even his mentors…of _course_ the show ended the way it did. And that is why they did it: not for the sake of tragedy, but to try to alleviate the fear of their own show’s potential. The creators were afraid of Merlin struggling against Destiny, so they made sure he could never put up a fight.

“Destines are troublesome things,” Merlin muses on the day of Arthur’s arranged marriage. “You feel trapped, like your whole life has been planned out for you and you’ve got no control over anything, and sometimes you don’t know if a destiny decided is…really the best thing at all” (5x06). This is a clear indication of the kind of tragedy _Merlin_ was, at face value, aiming for—the classical tragedy where the ending is a foregone conclusion. This quotation, alluding to the characters’ lack of control, their sense of being _trapped_ , is a perfect picture of the entirety of their existence on the show. But then Merlin goes on to say something very wise indeed—something about Destiny that makes it all worthwhile. “If Uther thinks an unhappy king will make for a stronger kingdom then he’s wrong,” says Merlin, “because you may be destined to rule Camelot, but you have a _choice_ …as to how you do it.” Right here, by their very own words, the _Merlin_ creators stand condemned. This is exactly what they should have shown us, especially at the end, and _especially_ with a show based on a well-traveled legend. These characters may be doomed; they may be destined for certain roles; but they _need a choice_ as to how to fulfill them—and _Merlin_ gives its lead character none.

Merlin would have been happier, with more freedom to grow, if he’d actually turned into a tree.


	4. The Prophecy of Mordred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter, but I figured we should hear from our villains as well as our heroes.

> _If the boy lives, you cannot fulfill your destiny. You must let the boy die._
> 
> –The Great Dragon, 1x08
> 
> _It is his destiny to bring about Arthur’s doom!_
> 
> –The Great Dragon, 2x11

Destiny’s control over the characters’ lives does not stop with Merlin. In the first four series of the show, there are 48 instances of someone “having no choice” but to take an otherwise indefensible or uncharacteristic course of action. That number, averaging 12 times every 13 episodes, is so high that it strains credulity. It betrays an undercurrent of distrust between the creators and their characters—a sort of instinctive trepidation that the characters will not act the way that they’re needed to act for the rigid and unswerving plotlines. We’ve already seen how the creators of _Merlin_ treat their protagonist, but Mordred’s part in the tale proves that the dictatorial nature of the show affects hero and villain alike. 

If we examine the quotations above, we see that these pronouncements appear to contradict the prophecy of Merlin and Arthur’s destiny in 1x01. After all, how can Arthur be destined to unite the land and fulfill his role as Once and Future King if it is Mordred’s destiny to bring about his doom? However, a closer look reveals that Mordred’s prophecy is conditional: he only need doom Arthur _if_ he lives long enough to do it. We have, then, what appear to be two mutually exclusive prophecies—if you will, two destinies on a collision course. Either Arthur’s will succeed, and Mordred will die, or Arthur’s will fail, and Albion will never be born. (And anyone who still believes in the truth of the Dragon’s final words will have a hard time explaining how Merlin and Arthur fulfilled their destiny when Mordred _did_ live long enough to doom Arthur.)

That Mordred’s fate is sealed seems clear enough. If he lives, he has no choice but to bring about the end of Arthur and Merlin’s destiny. As we all know, because it’s his _destiny,_ he cannot choose it, and he cannot escape it. (It wouldn’t make sense, after all, for those rules to apply to Merlin’s destiny but not to Mordred’s.) It does not follow, however, that this must make Mordred a villain. Perseus, after all, was destined in Greek mythology to kill his grandfather, which he ended up doing by accident, throwing a discus so hard that it hit his grandfather in the stands. Also, in Malory, Mordred’s army attacks Arthur’s after a knight raises a sword to kill a snake, and both sides mistake it for the other side attacking. There is a way out of Mordred being a typical villain, and because this show is about subverting expectations, here is a chance for the creators to take it. Instead of using that path, however, the creators block Mordred’s way and shunt him down another path in turn, using a character replacement as needed to better control the outcome.

There are two versions of Mordred in _Merlin:_ Mordred the boy, who embraces his villainy freely but is never allowed to follow through with it; and Mordred the man, whom Destiny forces _into_ villainy despite the latter’s best efforts—again a bizarre and inexplicable choice unless viewed through the lens of control for the sake of control. Young Mordred has a deep hatred of Uther, justified in this version by Uther murdering his father and trying to murder him; he is saved in a last-ditch attempt by Merlin and Arthur, who smuggle him out of the city and back to his Druid kin. However, aside from the ominous music that plays whenever Mordred shows up on-screen in Series 1 and 2, Mordred also spends most of his time staring solemnly, being angry, or giving us wicked smiles whenever he is plotting to take down Uther. In 2x11, we are left in no doubt as to whether he is a villain. When two guards attempt to capture him, Mordred telekinetically hurls a spear into each guard—and after he impales both of them, he smiles. Then he turns to Merlin (who had just tried to stop him), loathing in his glance, and says, “I shall never forgive this, Emrys…and I shall never forget.” With a last foreboding stare, he disappears into the foliage, and now we know that Mordred is dead set on revenge against Merlin at any cost.

So far, so good…Mordred has embraced the darkness that was growing inside him ever since he broke a mirror at his father’s death. He has a legitimate quarrel with Uther, which it would not be hard to imagine him carrying over to Arthur once Mordred is grown. He seems pleased with his role as antagonist and shows no sign of changing or of being compelled to walk a dark path. However, when we next see Mordred in Series 5, we find that none of this matters. All of the previous characterization of Mordred has been thrown out the window. No ominous music plays; we see no evil smiles; the dire promise that Mordred will “never forget” _is_ forgotten, and the Mordred that killed Uther’s men with his mind alone and smiled about it afterward seems to have vanished. In the gap between series, the old Mordred has been replaced by a genuinely good man: a man who has learned to hide his magic due to persecution, and who saves Merlin and Arthur when they’re captured by Morgana’s men.

It is true that through most of Series 5, Mordred is an ambiguous character. He is happy to see Morgana, but is visibly perturbed when she talks about watching the crows feast on Arthur’s eyes. He brings Arthur and Merlin to see Morgana, but when they have the opportunity to escape, he stabs Morgana to help them get away. When Arthur knights him, we still see that Merlin is suspicious of him, and given that the past two series have involved a traitor hiding in plain sight at the King’s right hand, there is a strong possibility that Mordred will take this route, too. However, during 5x11, we finally realize that Mordred was not biding his time and waiting for the day when he could strike at Arthur, unseen; he genuinely believed in the world Arthur was trying to build until the day when Arthur and Merlin made living in that world impossible for him. At the end of 5x11, he has turned into the traitor Merlin feared he would become, but he only does so because there is no other way for him to live. Mordred’s ambiguity stems from the show’s desire to keep us guessing, not from any ambivalence in Mordred’s own wishes.

The Mordred of Series 5 does not _want_ to betray Camelot; he does not _want_ kill Arthur; yet he does both because, as _Merlin_ is so fond of saying, he has no choice. From his first reappearance, he has to hide who he is, just as Merlin does. Also from the very beginning, the only other person who Mordred knows is like him treats him with suspicion. Watching their first scene alone together, with Merlin borderline sneering as he reminds Mordred that if Arthur knew he had magic, he wouldn’t be knighted, we are left with the impression that Merlin is much more in the wrong here than Mordred is. To add to Mordred’s feeling of exclusion, Merlin advises Arthur to let Mordred die and not allow magic into Camelot in 5x05. Even with all this, though, Mordred is determined to be a loyal knight to Camelot. He endures the knights’ hazing pranks with good grace and always treats Arthur and Merlin with respect. Mordred says truthfully, “Arthur is right; the love that binds us is more important than the power we wield,” meaning he was never an enemy of Arthur or Camelot until Merlin’s Dragon-fed suspicion and refusal to take a definite stand for magic folk forced him out of Camelot. Mordred, Mark II is resisting the slot the show wants to put him into with every ounce of strength.

Enter the creators’ plot device, also known as Kara. Kara is Mordred’s one and only true love that we’ve never seen or heard of before. Mordred never mentions or hints about her at any earlier point in the show, and she shows up in 5x11, just three episodes before the end. As an added insult to the audience’s intelligence, Mordred proclaims, “She is...someone...since I was a child... she's always lived inside my heart.” We who have _seen_ Mordred as a child know that this is, in a word, preposterous. Kara, as a one-episode character, leaves us no room to analyze the strength of her and Mordred’s relationship, so as with so many romances on this show, the audience is supposed to accept Mordred’s undying devotion to her as hard fact with no real evidence at hand. This is also in spite of the fact that Mordred has sworn an oath to stay on as a Knight of Camelot, a position that he surely would know is incompatible with Kara’s hard-line beliefs against the city and its king.

A series of contrivances ensues to make sure that Mordred never gets all of the information he needs to make an informed decision about Kara’s fate. First, after Mordred asks Merlin not to reveal Kara’s whereabouts to Arthur, Kara attacks the King, resulting in her being led away in chains. Since Mordred sees her being led away but not her attacking the King in cold blood, he naturally assumes that Merlin betrayed his secret to Arthur. This makes it sting all the more when Merlin really does tell Arthur that Mordred is helping the Druid girl escape, even though Merlin is only trying to keep Arthur safe. The result is that Mordred is caught and placed in the dungeons, so when Arthur takes Kara to the throne room to offer her one last chance to live, Mordred is not there to see it. He does not know that Arthur tried to get Kara to see reason; he only knows that Arthur had her killed.

More importantly, there is a three-way memory shield among Merlin, Arthur, and the adult Mordred during Series 5. Arthur does not remember Mordred at all in this series, even though Mordred plainly reminds him of the time that Arthur helped save him from Uther. There is no reason for Arthur not to recall this; Morgana nearly being strangled by Uther and Arthur nearly being caught committing treason are not exactly forgettable events. In reality, Arthur _should_ know that Mordred is a Druid; he _should_ know that this means he practices magic, rendering moot all the conflict around magic being bad or good in Series 5. In Merlin’s memory (as we’ve previously discussed) the Dragon’s prophecy about Mordred bringing about Arthur’s doom has somehow morphed into “Arthur will meet his end at the hands of a Druid,” causing Merlin to repeatedly second-guess himself instead of acting when he should. He could have either killed Mordred outright or befriended Mordred as he should have, and Arthur would be safe…if only his memories were intact. Lastly, Mordred is a Druid and calls Merlin “Emrys”—yet he seems to have no idea what that means. In other words, why does Mordred treat Merlin with such respect if he _doesn’t_ know that Merlin is supposed to work with Arthur to unite the land of Albion and bring about the return of magic? If he did, of course, he would be busy persuading Merlin to fulfill his destiny in Camelot, instead of accepting that he will always be an outcast there. This memory lockout shows that it’s not enough for “soft” Destinyto control one side of the conflict every step of the way; it must do this for _both_ sides, and it must remove huge chunks of knowledge from its characters in order to do so.

When Kara dies, Mordred uses his pent-up magical strength to break out of prison and immediately joins up with Morgana against Merlin and Arthur. We can understand his actions, surely—he has been left with nowhere else to turn. He cannot trust _any_ of the protagonists and the prophecy that he _should_ know about if he knows that Merlin is Emrys has somehow escaped him. And yet, it is all too easy to see how unfitting it is for Mordred and Morgana to be working together at the battle of Camlann. The Mordred and Morgana of Series 2 had a special bond, partly because of their magic and partly because they both looked out for each other. But neither Series 5 Mordred nor Series 5 Morgana is the same person. The prophecy of the Great Dragon, of “an alliance between Mordred and Morgana, united in evil,” comes true only in the most superficial way. While watching the lead-up to the Battle of Camlann, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Mordred and Morgana don’t belong side by side at all. She is raving mad; he is quietly sane. She cares only about vengeance and her own power; he believes in the idea of Albion, and has only turned away from it because he was forced to. She is a high priestess; he has become much more reliant on his sword. Also, and this is probably not the least of the problems with this “union,” _Mordred stabbed Morgana in the back._ Morgana, who turned against _everyone in Camelot_ when Merlin tried to kill her to protect his friends, forgives Mordred for doing the _exact same thing_ to her just because he tells her who Emrys is! There is nothing logical and _nothing_ united about these two; they go to war for completely different reasons and with completely different goals. They are so incompatible, in fact, that Mordred can’t sit through a single meal with Morgana without extreme discomfort. He doesn’t want to be Morgana’s pet general; he doesn’t want to kill Arthur or take sides against Merlin; he _does not want to be here._

As they always do, the creators try to convince us that this is not the case—that Mordred really had a choice all along. In 5x05, Merlin says of his vision of Arthur’s death, “I can’t ignore what I saw. Gaius, Mordred is destined to play a part in Arthur’s death.” Gaius replies, “Perhaps, perhaps not. The future has many paths. That is only one. Have you ever seen him show anything but kindness towards Arthur?” Gaius, who as we remember is a mouthpiece for the creators, insists that there are many roads ahead for the show’s endgame. _Merlin_ wants us to believe that this _is_ a decision Mordred can make of his own free will. Perhaps one of the futures that did not appear in Merlin’s dream will come true, instead. Cementing the creators’ intent for us, their other spokesman tells us the same thing: “The future is never clear, Merlin. You should know that by now. There are many paths. Not all lead to Camelot’s ruin.”

However, then we recall that we’ve had this trick played on us twice before: both times with crystals from the Crystal Cave. In 2x11, Merlin yields to temptation and holds the Crystal of Neahtid, which shows him the Dragon ravaging Camelot. When he voices his worries to Gaius, these are the latter’s placating words: “There is nothing on this earth that can know all possible futures, even the Crystal… The future is as yet unshaped. It is we that shape it. It is you, Merlin. The decisions you make. The actions you take. Remember that.” Gaius’ words here, particularly the concept of a future that is _not_ predetermined, are identical in tone and sentiment to his words in 5x05. In 3x05, Merlin is urged to look into the crystals of the Crystal Cave, and he sees a vision of Morgana preparing to stab Uther. When a traumatized Merlin confides this to Gaius, Gaius again tries to soothe him with this wisdom: “Merlin, you must be careful. The Crystals are treacherous. What you saw may not be all that it seemed.” Later in the episode, he says, “We don’t know when this is going to happen. We don’t even know if it will.” Here again is the idea that the crystals of the cave, like the Crystal of Neahtid, like Merlin’s dream, are only one possible future. Nothing is set in stone, and these methods of sight can be wrong.

Yet all three times, what do we see is the outcome? In 2x13, the Dragon goes on a rampage, raining fire and terror on Camelot just as the crystal had shown. In 3x05, Morgana almost kills Uther, just as seen in the crystal—the steps that Merlin takes to prevent it from happening end up causing it. And Merlin’s dream of Arthur’s dying comes true, exactly as shown and despite all Merlin could do to try and prevent it. In all three cases, there is not a single event from Merlin’s many visions that we do _not_ see come true. How can we believe that there are “many futures” when the only future that ever happens is the one we were previously shown? In all three cases, anything Merlin tries to prevent these _destinies—_ for that is what they are—ends up doing more harm than good. This does not point to individual hands shaping the future, but to the inevitability of every future we see. These destinies are a microcosm of the way the show works: they promise freedom of action, but deliver absolute control. Mordred killing Arthur per Merlin’s vision is no less inevitable, no less out of Mordred’s hands, than the futures Merlin sees are out of _his_ hands, despite all protestations to the contrary.

Mordred’s last words are, “You gave me no choice.” And he is perfectly right.

 

 


	5. The Prophecy of Morgana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, everyone! This essay is now complete, only a bit of editing to do, and I will be able to make regular posts again now that my writing mojo is back.

 

 

 

 

> _It would be better if The Witch never knew the true extent of her powers._
> 
> The Great Dragon, 2x03

 

With Merlin, the writers use Gaius and the Dragon to sabotage and manipulate the warlock's actions. With Mordred, they employ a character replacement that is stripped of free will by fate. For the two Pendragon children, the show introduces a different method of control: ignorance. Keeping Morgana and Arthur in the dark about critical aspects of reality is paramount to the sacred stagnation that _Merlin_ devotes itself to throughout its run. It’s not quite enough in Morgana’s case, however, and ignorance is also paired with a total character replacement to facilitate Morgana’s drastic plunge over the cliff of sanity and goodness.

In the early years of _Merlin_ , Morgana is portrayed as a strong, though stubborn and rebellious, young woman. She believes in saying what she thinks, and her defiance of Uther during the hunt for Mordred and the execution of Gwen’s father lead to threats and imprisonment in Series 1. She tends to see people as simply people, more so than Arthur—she is the first to defend Gwen’s innocence in 1x03 and Gwen’s father’s innocence in 1x12, and the first to offer her sword to help Merlin rid his mother’s village of bandits. She is capable of seeing Arthur as different from Uther more than once: “You’re not like your father,” she tells Arthur in 1x08, and “You’re a better man than your father,” she says after he has freed her from the dungeons. Morgana is also gifted with Sight, which manifests through disturbing dreams that always come true.

Unfortunately, once she starts exercising this power of hers, the creators take pains to make sure that she is unable follow her visions with action. Their pet instrument of control, Gaius, keeps her powers in check by giving her sleeping draughts and thereby repressing her gift—for her own safety, of course. Yet even when these don’t work, Gaius still attempts to keep Morgana in the dark about the reality of her visions. We see this first in 1x07, when Morgana confides to Gaius that she saw a vision of a woman standing over Arthur, trying to drown him in a lake:

 

 

 

 

> MORGANA:  I saw Arthur lying under water, drowning, and there was a woman standing over him, watching him die. And she’s here in Camelot.
> 
> GAIUS: The mind plays tricks. It borrows from everyday life and plays out its own fantasy.
> 
> MORGANA: But I had this dream before she came to Camelot.
> 
> GAIUS: You must be mistaken.
> 
> MORGANA: No, I know what I saw. It was so real...so vivid. I saw him die, Gaius. She’s going to kill him.
> 
> GAIUS: These are just dreams, Morgana, nothing more. Are you taking the sleeping draught I made up for you?
> 
> MORGANA: Oh, it doesn’t help.
> 
> GAIUS: Here. Try this. It will induce a deeper sleep ( _hands her a bottle_ ) You’ve nothing to fear.
> 
>  

Not once, not twice, but _three times_ , Gaius tries to deny the truth of what Morgana sees. When that doesn’t work, he returns to his tried-and-true method of keeping her ignorant by drugging her. We see by her increasingly desperate attempts to get Gaius to believe her that denying the reality of her powers is at _least_ as traumatizing as telling her what is happening, because she has a very good idea of what is wrong with her, and Gaius’ denial just makes her doubt her better judgment. At the end of that same episode, Gaius commands Merlin not to tell Morgana about her magic: “She must never learn the truth.” When Merlin protests, Gaius reiterates that it is too dangerous for her to know—after all, she might end up dead.

Considering that Morgana ended up dead anyway at the end of the show, after taking countless innocent lives with her, even if that were true, it would _still_ have been better at this point to let Morgana know everything. Yet there is no hint anywhere in the show that Gaius is in the least to blame for Morgana’s eventual downfall. No one accuses him of keeping what is, in Camelot, quite literally a life-threatening condition from someone who trusts him as a physician. Nor does he (unlike Merlin) show any remorse in any future episode of keeping important knowledge from her. Furthermore, in 1x13, Morgana’s visions impel her to cry out against Arthur going on a hunt, to the point where she has to be physically restrained. Of course, Arthur goes on the hunt anyway and gets bitten by the deadly Questing Beast—but again, no one on the show confirms for Morgana that her dreams are, in fact, visions. By keeping her in the dark, Gaius (and Merlin, by extension) not only cause her unnecessary self-doubt, but they allow her to look like a babbling lunatic in front of a courtyard of people.

In Series 2, Morgana’s powers grow, and so does the creative control over her. When she shatters a vase with her mind and sets her curtains on fire (2x03), she goes to Gaius for help, and finding Merlin instead, she begs him to tell her that she isn’t crazy. Merlin, reluctantly acquiescing to Gaius’s wishes, tries to brush off her suspicions—which, instead of causing Morgana to doubt herself, just causes her to doubt Merlin. We have seen three times now that keeping Morgana ignorant of her powers is the _worst possible thing_ anyone on the show can do, because it doesn’t stop her from being aware of them; all it does is make her feel cut off from all forms of help. And yet, when Merlin tries to convince Gaius to relent, the physician _still_ forbids him from revealing anything about magic to her—and the Dragon maintains that it _would_ be better if she never knew about her powers, in complete contrast to what we see.

The reason for the show’s insistence on this is clear: their fresh, new premise began with a Morgana who was compassionate and tolerant, and she had to end up as an evil enchantress. As with the return of magic, the intriguing part as far as the audience is concerned is the journey the character has to take to get from one end of the spectrum to the other. With care, Morgana could have willingly trodden the path they were determined for her to take—but there was always a chance that she would appear too sympathetic while doing so. The creators worried that they couldn’t make her take that path willingly…so they opted to _drag_ her down that path instead. Throughout the show, they allow Morgana just enough knowledge about magic to suit their purposes, while keeping everything from her that would enable her to act contrary to their wishes.

Witness, for instance, Merlin attempting to circumvent Gaius’s prohibition by taking Morgana to the Druids. Aglain, a healer, helps Morgana to understand that her powers are nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, and that they are a natural part of her. Yet he conveniently dies in an attack by Arthur’s men before he can take Morgana in and teach her anything about good magic. The fact that this venture was disastrous for the Druids also leads Merlin to conclude that he was wrong ever to _think_ about going against Gaius when it comes to Morgana, allowing for no more expeditions of this kind. Gaius kindly forgives Merlin for daring to stray too far from the show’s agenda, and Morgana is left with knowledge of the existence of her powers but not how to apply them.

In the second half of Series 2, Morgana gets a mentor figure in the form of Morgause. Morgause’s healing bracelet does what Gaius should have done all along: it helps her to suppress most of the nightmares, but allows the really powerful and important ones to come through. Morgause also allows her to act on them herself, instead of having Merlin take over once Gaius knows about whatever Morgana sees in her dreams. Morgause shows real concern for Morgana’s wellbeing and is willing to tell her the truth about her powers. She is even willing to let Camelot stand if it means she can save Morgana’s life at the end of Series 2. Yet at the same time as Morgause is opening up new magical possibilities for Morgana, Merlin is forced to shut them down, without the show letting Morgana know why he is doing what he does. When Merlin poisons Morgana, at the time she believes it’s because she has magic (as she thinks he is the only one who knows about it), when in truth, he is sworn by Destiny to protect Arthur and his city. Just as Merlin is cut off from any magical confidants that the show doesn’t want him to have, Morgana is cut off from any magical confidants that the show doesn’t want _her_ to have. Merlin and Morgana have a lot in common…if they were only allowed to talk about it.

Then we arrive at Series 3, and the big unknown for the series opener is: what will Morgana’s reaction be to Merlin’s betrayal? Will she be bitter, but ultimately forgiving of him? Will she hate Merlin, and thereafter have to hide her feelings from Arthur and Gwen? No—it turns out that Merlin’s betrayal has led her to hate Merlin…Arthur…Gwen…and _everyone else in Camelot_ , with a one-dimensional passion that is exceedingly hard to swallow. There is no character development for her between Series 2 and 3; we never learn what went on with Morgause and why Morgana goes against Camelot without so much as a backward glance. Yes, she trusted Merlin and he betrayed her, but she also knows that he had a good reason, since _she herself_ voices that reason in 3x01: “You were trying to protect your friends.” Arthur never betrayed her; Gwen never betrayed her; Gaius never betrayed her (as far as she knows); and Camelot is still her home. In Series 4, she sees Arthur as just like Uther, but we never understand how she could have come to that conclusion when she said exactly the opposite three series ago. And to look with enmity at Gwen? Gwen has never been anything but supportive of Morgana; Gwen’s own father was murdered in Uther’s irrational pursuit of magic, and Morgana’s staunch defense of Gwen’s father speaks to the close relationship that they had in the early series.  For Morgana to believe that her best friend betrayed her with _no evidence whatsoever_ is completely out of character.

Not only does Morgana behave differently toward people she loves; she assumes attributes that she never before possessed, for no reason other than that those traits are evil, and since Morgana is evil now, she must possess them also. She dons a swirling red cape and a Snidely Whiplash smirk, and is so much of a caricature that she can’t even play _herself_ convincingly. When she shows up in a forest in 3x01, dirty and in need of medical attention, we are given a Morgana that appears to be good, except that she is now a damsel in distress. When Morgana regains consciousness, the first thing she does is apologize to Merlin for putting Camelot in danger at the end of the previous series. Morgana seems timid, almost submissive: “You don’t know how much I regret everything that I’ve done!” she exclaims tearfully to Merlin. This is not the Morgana of Series 1 and 2, but it _is_ the show’s version of how a good Morgana would behave: taking the entire burden of guilt on herself and not blaming anyone else (especially Gaius and Merlin) for the previous attempt on her life. The fake-good version of Morgana is just as much of a caricature of the person she used to be as the evil version of Morgana is. She cannot express magical injustice while aware of the fact that she herself has done wrong; she is not allowed to go against Uther without going against Arthur, too. She cries, she implores, she even faints obligingly—as if she has no acquaintance at all with the person she used to be.

If Morgana is a character that has forgotten how to play herself _,_ what does that say about how much of her original personality remains? As Series 3 progresses, we see this more and more—that Morgana has not merely changed, but been _removed_ to make way for the version of the character that is safely in the evil camp. In addition to treating Arthur as just like his father, in 3x03 we see Morgana treat Gaius as a member of the lower classes: “I am the King’s ward, and you shall do as I ask.” Such posturing is something we have never seen her do before. Then in 4x06, Morgana constantly refers to Merlin as a servant, even though she was the least class-conscious character of the early series. Even if we assume that somehow, Merlin’s betrayal _did_ lead to Morgana’s blanket condemnation of everyone in Camelot, why would that cause her to adopt restrictive views on social classes? Even more inexplicably, before Morgana even has a vision of Gwen being crowned Queen, she cruelly toys with Gwen’s secret affection for Arthur in 3x06—not for any interests of her own, but simply because she wants to. We have seen pride, stubbornness, and temper in Morgana, but pettiness is hardly one of her flaws—or Morgause’s, in case we try to lay the blame on her.

We are never shown _how_ Morgana makes this complete and baffling about-face, and the only conclusion we can draw is that she is an entirely different character from Series 3 on. As with Morgana’s knowledge of events, if the show took the time it needed with Morgana’s reaction to Merlin’s betrayal, she might be too sympathetic to the audience. This might in turn lead to redemption for a character that Destiny never intended to save. Instead of being completely confident in the inclination of Morgana toward evil, the creators tack on attributes that have nothing to do with Morgana’s previous characterization, evil or otherwise, just so she can look bad. These traits keep cropping up even _after_ she has already betrayed Camelot and worked toward its destruction. When a red cape is not enough, she dons a black dress. When killing innocent civilians (instead of the knights that actually carried out Uther’s orders) isn’t enough, she makes her sister into a human sacrifice in the next episode. The Morgana who liked flowers delivered to her now has only wilted plants and snakes at her command. The show is anxious to make surewe know how irredeemable she is at every level.

Because Morgana does not get character development, but a character replacement, she has no choice in her decision to join the dark side. We never even see her make the decision on-screen…because it would not be believable if it were actually shown. Morgause didn’t kidnap Morgana; the creators did, and they replaced her with an impostor to suit their own ends. While this is still unbelievable to the point of inanity, it is the kind of implausibility that they can _narrate_ their way out of. If the creators of _Merlin_ are afraid that they will not be able to do something effectively, they will do something _in_ effectively off-screen and browbeat the audience by telling them how effective it was. Series 3 is the show telling us that Morgana is evil, and that we had better accept it, because it’s here to stay.

As Morgana grows in magical power, her dreams grow in strength, too—except that her dreams never show her anything that might change her mind about her enemies. She never sees Merlin being Emrys, leading Arthur into a golden age and repealing the ban on magic. She never sees Merlin trying to fight for her against his mentor figure, or Arthur being worried for her wellbeing, or Gwen defying Uther. Nor, despite the fact that she employs renegade magicians in the later series, does she ever come across the prophecy that all the Druids and Catha (except, conveniently, Mordred) know about: the prophecy of Merlin and Arthur bringing magic back to the land. She knows just enough to fight against Uther, but not enough to ally herself with the protagonists—so her only recourse is to pretend to love Uther as a daughter while secretly plotting to bring him down. Thus begins the Series 3-5 story arc: wherein a seemingly trusted advisor and confidant gets close to the King, only for it to result in a betrayal shocking to everyone but Merlin and Gaius. Ironically, the character who was originally the most divergent from expectations ends up consigning the show to a repeating pattern for the last three series of its run. That’s the creators of _Merlin_ in a nutshell: whenever they “change the game” in the later series, it is only to make the show even more of the same.

Since Morgana is now everything that the creators wanted her to become, one might think that they are content with her non-journey and allow her some freedom in her evilness. Yet Morgana goes from a sumptuous room in a castle to a hovel in the woods…and then to a _cage_ where she is tormented for two years straight. She loses her home, her family, her mentor, her position at court, and finally, in Series 5, her sanity. The show’s treatment of Morgana brings to mind Virginia’s Woolf’s perception of a professor in _A Room of One’s Own: “_ His expression suggested that he was labouring under some emotion that made him jab his pen on the paper as if he were killing some noxious insect as he wrote, but even when he had killed it that did not satisfy him; he must go on killing it; and even so, some cause for anger and irritation remained.”

Why were Morgana and Aithusa _both_ captured and caged for two years? We didn’t need to make Morgana _more_ evil; she was already as evil as she could get. We didn’t need to make her suffer _more_ ; she had already lost everything of value to her. We know that Aithusa needs not to be able to speak to Merlin so that s/he1 isn’t tempted to join the heroes’ side again, but there is no reason for Morgana to have been locked up, too. It would have made more sense for Morgana to be the one to _rescue_ Aithusa from the cage, thus explaining why Aithusa would choose to go with Morgana instead of Merlin (on whom s/he actually should have imprinted). Yet even though there is no point to this confinement, the creators still take away Morgana’s freedom; they _want_ and _need_ to make her suffer this way. The creators are angry at Morgana, because deep down, they know that she was too much for them to handle. You see, it ought to be satisfying, being able to vilify her so easily in Series 3—but it’s not, because they secured their objective in her story by using the series gap to cheat. Good!Morgana was a character development challenge they never fairly defeated, and as a challenger, they fear her still. Thus, they cannot help taking revenge on Morgana for exposing their own timidity as storytellers. And what better way of controlling a wild character than to imprison her for years at a time?

In the end, they give Morgana the only end they are capable of: they kill her. Merlin stabs Morgana with Excalibur, just has she has made a typically grandiose claim that no mortal blade can end her life. After she dies, Arthur tells Merlin that Morgana’s death has brought peace to the land. This is where the show loses any right to claim that by introducing magical persecution, it portrays how wrong it is to discriminate against those who are different. Evil as she was, without Merlin revealing his magic until the finale, Morgana represented the only organized resistance to Uther and Arthur’s tyranny against magic users. The fact that slaughtering the magical army and killing its leader brings about peace—but we never see a declaration allowing magic into Camelot—speaks to just how little the showrunners valued any message of tolerance or compromise. Crushing the opposing side is not unity, and it is surely not peace, but because the _Merlin_ creators have compelled Morgana’s character to become pure evil, they have no other option when it comes to ending her struggle on the show. Morgana’s treatment in Series 5 is the final culmination of the creators’ need to force-march her character to the sacrificial altar of villainy in much the same way as they did to Mordred.

Somewhere, the true Lady Morgana is still waiting, looking with outrage on all they have done.

* * *

 

1. Aithusa’s gender: Julian Murphy seemed surprised when Katie McGrath brought up the fact that most of the villains on Merlin are female, which is curious considering the show’s treatment of Aithusa. In 4x04, the Great Dragon clearly says, “You have named _him_ after the light of the sun.” In the Series 4 finale, Aithusa heals Morgana and then goes off with her, staying with the villainess for the remainder of the show and eventually helping her to kill Arthur by forging Mordred’s sword. After Aithusa’s alignment goes from good to evil, “he” is henceforth referred to as “she.” There is nothing plot-related that could account for this change in gender; Aithusa never takes a mate or lays a dragon egg of her own, nor are there any magical properties specific to female dragons in the world of Merlin. The only difference is that now Aithusa is on the side of evil, and so now Aithusa is female. The unselfconscious way this was done means that it almost certainly wasn’t deliberate; it was simply intuitive for the Merlin creators to match Aithusa more closely to the image of evil that the show depicts. The discussion of Merlin and sexism is a matter for another day, but this does make it easier to disbelieve the Merlin creators if they deny equating women with evil. After all, we don’t have to doubt the sincerity of their words to doubt the truth of them. 


	6. The Prophecy of Arthur

Part V: The Prophecy of Arthur

 

 

 

> _Arthur is the Once and Future King who will unite the land of Albion._
> 
> –The Great Dragon, 1x01

It is worth returning to the Dragon’s initial prophecy when discussing the man that all this fuss has been about. Merlin’s destiny is to protect Arthur; Mordred’s destiny is to destroy him; but Arthur’s destiny is the only one that involves changing the way the world of _Merlin_ works. He is destined to build something great for all the people of Albion—a united kingdom, a world of peace and beauty, a world where magic can return and equality can reign. Unlike the other prophecies, which revolve around a single person, Arthur’s is really about everyone, affecting an entire land and people. Thus, Arthur’s potential is more of a threat to the show’s tyranny than every other prophecy combined. Arthur is the only one who can take action that will really lead to progress—and to that end, his lot in _Merlin_ is the worst one of all.

Throughout this essay, we have seen the various ways that _Merlin_ ’s version of Destiny hamstrings the characters’ ability to bring about change: character replacement, selective ignorance, and the words of the very prophecies that are supposed to herald the change the show so dreads. Yet none of these is sufficient to control Arthur. Because Arthur is so central to the show, the creators can’t replace him as they did with Morgana and Mordred. Nor can they persuade Arthur to hide in the shadows like Merlin does, in some vain hope that someone _else_ will bring about the necessary change. Arthur is a man of action, and he is a man who loves his people. If he knew, even for an instant, that his kingdom’s anti-magic stance was causing them to suffer, he would _act._

Arthur, like Morgana, is kept in ignorance of what could certainly change his mind about the right course of action when it comes to magic—but Morgana’s selective ignorance is nothing compare to what Arthur endures at the hands of his creators. Arthur’s ignorance is not selective; it is a universal constant _._ Bradley James brings up this very fact in a Series 3 interview: “Arthur leads a life of ignorance, in many things,” he acknowledges. Prince Arthur is as ignorant as Morgana about Merlin’s nature; he is as ignorant as Mordred about the prophecies; he is as ignorant as Uther about the goodness magic can bring. And this ignorance is not willful on his part; it is impossible for him to arrive at the truth on his own, since at the first whiff of Arthur getting close to it, the creators quite literally beat it out of him.

Morgana’s characterization is painless by comparison: a swift and complete assassination of who she was. Arthur’s character is not destroyed all at once: he grows in his acceptance of magic just enough to raise our hopes, and then is bludgeoned back into his old mindset—again and again and again. To see how early this had to start, let us return to the pilot episode. After Merlin uses magic to cheat in a fight with Arthur, we see that Arthur suspects something is different about Merlin at their very first meeting: “There’s something about you, Merlin. I can’t quite put my finger on it.” Arthur is suspicious of Merlin at the start of the show—and yet he only finds out about the magic at the end? This is a character path that defies comprehension. It is understandable, of course, that the creators would not want to reveal Merlin’s magic in the first series, but to do the same thing for all five means they have to resort to increasingly desperate and ill-conceived measures to keep Arthur locked into one opinion about sorcery.

At first, the conveniences around the magic reveal suppression are relatively harmless, almost like an in-joke between the show and the viewers. One of the reasons for this is that in the beginning, _Merlin_ is respectful enough simply to have Arthur look the other way when magic happens. In 1x02, for example, Arthur is fighting Valiant when Merlin utters his chant to stop the snakes. In 1x07, Arthur is busy with bandits when Merlin helps him out by dropping a tree branch on one of them. In 1x10, Will is conveniently at hand to take the blame for Merlin’s magic, and then dies obligingly so that he cannot be questioned about it. Moreover, even if Arthur’s official stance on magic doesn’t change, this doesn’t prevent him from growing in other ways. He goes from an arrogant bully in 1x01, to someone who cares about his duty (1x02), someone who reacts with rationality instead of panic at a magical problem (1x03), someone who will risk his life for his servant (1x04), someone who will challenge his father over a commoner knight (1x05), someone who will protect a Druid—a magical person!—from his father’s wrath (1x08), someone who will risk his life to defend people in a kingdom not even his own (1x10), and someone who will drink poison to rescue his friend and heal a problem he caused (1x11). If the timing of Arthur’s unawareness is a bit too convenient, at least it doesn’t seem to be hampering his character development.

The problem is that as the Prince grows closer to being King and eventually taking over Camelot, he becomes more and more of a threat to the show’s restrictive take on magic. Thus the violence the creators inflict on him to maintain his ignorance will escalate, even when it hinders storytelling and characterization. In the very first episode of Series 2, they knock him unconscious with rubble so that Merlin can save the day with magic. In the second episode, they grievously wound him so he doesn’t realize how easily he triumphs over a duplicitous assassin. Throughout the rest of the series, they poison him, hurl him to the ground, enchant him with a love potion, enchant him with a sleeping spell, give him sepsis, and nearly incinerate him in the Series 2 finale. These hardships, while nothing that a king-to-be couldn’t be expected to suffer, do not enhance his character growth in the least; they are only here to blind him to Merlin’s true self. This is the creators of _Merlin_ inflicting bodily harm on Arthur because they can’t control him any other way. All the characters in _Merlin_ undergo pain and hardship at certain points due to the show’s ironhanded control over them, but only Arthur’s take on repeated physical form; and though the show still tries to play it for laughs, driving Arthur’s bouts of unconsciousness is not humor: it is fear.

What effect, exactly, does this have on Arthur’s character? [Chuck Sonnenburg](http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v906.php) paints a very accurate picture of memory’s effect on a person’s identity:

> Our memories, the only record we have of our experiences, help make us what we are as people. When somebody takes them, alters them, they’re arguably destroying us, leaving someone a little bit different to walk around in our bodies, unaware of what has happened to them. That’s why the Doctor sat there in his vigil, about to be changed, the person that he was to be replaced by someone a little bit different. Someone judged less a danger, without him being given a chance to defend himself.

By knocking Arthur out, the creators are removing information from Arthur’s experiences without him being given a chance to defend himself. They make Merlin do the same thing to Arthur whenever he feeds his friend false information. The show forcibly blindfolds Arthur during his most crucial life experiences, from finding out the truth of his mother, to the death of his father, to the way he pulled the sword from the stone. This distorts his recollections, warps his perception of the world—and the blindfold is only allowed to lift when it would no longer do his kingdom any good.

Arthur is changed, not once, not twice, but _every single episode_ , into a slightly different person: a person judged less a danger to the show’s status quo. And we know that his awareness certainly would be a danger to it because of the way Arthur reacts to magic when the blindfold is _not_ thrown over his eyes. Even when he has been taught all his life that magic is evil, he is still more lenient than Uther in every magical encounter. He is willing to help Mordred escape; his awareness that Gaius used to practice magic doesn’t change Arthur’s treatment of him; he is willing to give Will (the supposed sorcerer) a respectful funeral, as he does to the unicorn he blindly slew. This is all in spite of the fact that the vast majority of times that he encounters magic, he sees it trying to do him harm. “Surely,” Arthur says to Merlin in 2x08, “not everyone who practices magic can be evil.”

“Sins of the Father,” in fact, is the one episode where the scales are allowed to fall from his eyes for a brief moment, giving the viewers an agonizing view of all that this show could have been. When Arthur learns the truth of his mother’s death from Morgause, his encounter with Uther is one of righteous anger:

 

> ARTHUR: My mother is dead because of your selfishness and arrogance. Her blood is on your hands.
> 
> UTHER: No. That’s not true. But Morgause would have you believe that.
> 
> ARTHUR: This is what fuels your hatred for those who practice magic. Rather than blame yourself for what you did, you blame them.
> 
> UTHER: You would believe a sorcerer’s lies over the word of your own father? I can only think that Morgause has enchanted you.
> 
> ARTHUR: You have hunted her kind like animals! How many hundreds have you condemned to death to ease your guilt?
> 
> UTHER: Those who practice magic will stop at nothing to destroy us! I have only done what is necessary to protect this kingdom!
> 
> ARTHUR: You speak of honour and nobility! You’re nothing but a hypocrite and a liar!

In this scene alone, we can see Arthur’s sense of personal and sovereign outrage, not only at his father’s lies, but at the injustices Uther perpetrated upon the people of Camelot. Never was Arthur more kingly. Never was he more magnificent. Never was he so terrifyingly able to change the world of _Merlin._ Of course, if Arthur did kill Uther, the kingdom would be torn apart and he would never have forgiven himself, so naturally, Merlin has to lie to him and bring Arthur’s opinion of magic right back to where it was. Arthur’s altered perception about his mother’s spirit is that it is an illusion conjured up by Morgause to deceive him, and that magic is once again, evil.

In Arthur’s actions during this episode, as well as in Arthur’s willingness to consider magic’s return in 4x03 and 5x05, we see how wrong it is for Arthur’s character to be against magic at all. As with Morgana’s cardboard villainy, Arthur’s stance against magic is not honestly arrived at in the show; it is not a real reflection of who he is. “Sins of the Father” is the perfect example of this: Arthur was ready to accept that magic is not evil _halfway through the show_ , and the only thing that could have stalled his character’s growth for so much longer is the most excruciatingly despotic storyline in recent memory. Sure enough, for the sake of the show’s stagnation, Arthur goes from a prince against magic to a king against magic. His character becomes all about something he isn’t truly against; he has to be _forced_ to be against it via destroying and tainting his recollection of events. And slowly but surely, by destroying Arthur over and over, _Merlin_ also comes to destroy the idea of him as King. A king who is a great leader cannot live in so much ignorance of everything around him, and the great leader that we have seen flashes of in Arthur can never be allowed to rule in this show; thus, the idea of Arthur the great leader is eventually buried, and a shovel taken to its head whenever it tries to rise from the ground.

The memory gaps that are forced upon Arthur, resulting in changes to Arthur’s personality against his natural bent, paradoxically lead _Prince_ Arthur to be more ready to be King than _King_ Arthur ever was. Gaius, of course, will always insist on Merlin waiting to reveal his magic or not turning a blind eye while a magician deposes Uther, on the grounds that Arthur is _not yet ready_ to be King: he says as much in 1x12, and in a deleted scene in 3x01, Gaius tells Leon that Arthur is not prepared to handle matters of state. Meanwhile, Prince Arthur continues to show how kingly he _is_ becoming, leading his men to victory in 3x02 and losing deliberately in a tournament against his father so that he can spare the dignity of his king (3x11). In 3x13, he knights several commoners against his father’s express decree, and by the start of Series 4, we see that Arthur has given up all pretense of not seeing Merlin as a friend. In 4x03, when Arthur himself suggests using magic to heal his father, he is poised on the brink of becoming all that everyone hoped he would be.

These signs can only point to one thing: Arthur is truly _not_ ready to be King as far as the show is concerned. Just as in 4x03, where magic in Camelot is not allowed to come into its own, the creators also realized—even as Arthur was being crowned—that he could never really be the king that the show’s premise had promised. With that realization, the creators abandoned both ideas together. Gaius once preached to Merlin against Uther’s overthrow because of the _peace and prosperity_ that Uther brought to Camelot; what, then, does he expect from Arthur’s progression? “We must hope it brings peace and stability to the land,” Gaius says. This change in focus is stunning. What has happened to the show that it must equate the idea of _prosperity_ with Uther and _stability_ with Arthur—instead of the other way around? Instead of becoming the King Arthur worthy of legend, Arthur merely replaces Uther: addressing none of the past king’s injustices against magic, refusing to listen to Merlin just as always, and presiding over a kingdom so permeable that to the last, only the citadel is safe. Merlin, as before, is stuck in an infinite loop of unrecognized heroics, and Arthur’s being King has no real bearing on any aspects of Merlin’s life. Since Merlin is the main character, Arthur’s kingship thus has no bearing on what the show is like, either. Once again, the creators have decided to forgo bringing Albion’s golden age to full flower in favor of making _Merlin_ as safely stable as possible.

To maintain this stability, rather than favoring Arthur’s true progress, the creators imbue him with a lack of confidence that leads to several backslides during his kingship. While present in earlier series, this self-doubt never seriously affected Arthur’s judgment as it does in Series 4 and 5. More and more, Merlin has to lead him by the nose to get him to do the right thing—all the while _telling_ him how great a king he is. The Prince will stand up to his father and proclaim his love of Guinevere in front of the whole court; the King allows Agravaine’s counsel to break them up over the course of one episode. Arthur stands by Will’s pyre as a prince; the King doesn’t so much as allow sorcerers marked graves. The prince who asked King Uther to forgive Odin’s assassination attempt turns into a king who executes the King of Caerleon in cold blood. And the two-parter wherein Arthur cements his legitimacy as King is the worst offender of all. In the finale of the previous series (Series 3), Prince Arthur is outraged when Morgana usurps the throne, but recognizes the wisdom of retreating and regrouping to save what is left of his fighting force. In the Series 4 finale—in the same situation—King Arthur will _not_ retreat, according to Merlin, even when staying would mean the death of him and hopelessness for his people. This lack of trust in Arthur’s judgment is compounded by Gaius quickly suggesting that _taking away Arthur’s free will_ is the only reasonable course of action.

It is easy to see why depriving Arthur of free will _is_ a reasonable course of action for the likes of Gaius, and it is also a good indicator of how the show treats Arthur like a child when he most needed to be an adult. When Arthur questions his own ability to be King, pointing out the many times he’s been betrayed and lied to, instead of showing us a scene where Arthur’s judgment _is_ sound…the creators show us many scenes in which Arthur has no judgment at all. Merlin leads a stupefied Arthur into the woods, and when the enchantment wears off, he concocts a completely obvious story about the sword of a legendary king, in fact confirming Arthur’s lack of judgment rather than negating it. Then, when King Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, it is because Merlin has waited until he sees Arthur being confident and then releases the spell. Arthur has been dragged away from his castle with his free will removed; led to the Sword in the Stone like a horse to water; and has the sword essentially pulled from the stone for him. And it is _now,_ in the two-parter where Arthur has the least control over his own actions and the actions of others, that the creators decide he is _truly_ ready to be King.

In the end, the hope that Arthur would someday be a great king was another carrot so the audience would settle down and stop clamoring for more change, especially a magic reveal. And once the creators had kept him in ignorance for so long that Arthur became his own bane (5x02), they showed as little interest in Arthur’s kingship as they had in Merlin’s magic. Arthur’s “Golden Age” is only three years long and completely off-screen, because it just isn’t important to the show. From 4x13 to 5x01, _Merlin_ leaps from what is essentially Arthur’s baptism to what is essentially his Last Supper without so much as a parable to show why he would be remembered. Merlin can talk all he wants about what a great kingdom Arthur is cobbling together, but the falseness of this statement is totally apparent: we never see _any_ ordinary citizen mention Albion. In the end, the reason Arthur is believable as a great king is only because of everything we saw him do as a prince, before the power he wielded became too dangerous for the show’s comfort level.

 _Merlin,_ however, is still not finished trying to bludgeon Arthur into oblivion. The last significant case of this occurs in 5x03, where Arthur saves a woman from burning in the outlying villages and she, in return, gives him the Horn of Cathbhadh. The prince who called his father “a hypocrite and a liar” for outlawing magic when he himself had used it decides, as King, to use the magic horn for his own gain; the fact that he has just seen a woman almost burned to death because magic is outlawed in his kingdom is completely ignored. This horn calls Uther back from the grave, and because the creators want to have Merlin reveal his magic to Uther (now that Uther is safely dead and such knowledge can no longer affect the show), they must knock Arthur out in order to do so. Since Merlin and Uther are the only other people in the room, the creators have Uther knock Arthur out with a shield because of how disappointed he is with Arthur’s decisions in Camelot. Uther then tries to _kill_ Arthur, justifying his actions with these words: “Camelot must come before all else. Even you.”

If there is one trait of Uther Pendragon’s of which we can be totally certain, it is that his love for Arthur surpasses all else—even Camelot _._ When Uther drugs Arthur in 1x09 and faces the Black Knight alone in violation of the Knights’ Code, his words are an utter contradiction to 5x03: “You mean more to me than anything I know, more than this entire kingdom, and certainly more than my own life.” Even after Arthur has tried to kill him in 2x08, and Uther is within his rights to execute his son for treason, the thought never crosses his mind. Instead, he makes an unflinching declaration of how important Arthur is to him: “My son, you mean more to me than anything” (2x08). When Uther has a chance to seek out the dragonlord Balinor in order to save Camelot from Kilgarrah, he forbids Arthur to go in front of the assembled knights. “My concern is for you,” he says, to which Arthur replies, “Mine is for Camelot.” The show could not be clearer on this point: Arthur values Camelot above everything else—the same way that Uther values Arthur. There is simply no way that the words of Uther’s ghost can be reconciled with _anything_ we’ve previously seen about his character. In fact, Uther’s last appearance before his specter haunts Camelot shows that he is more than willing to back up his words with action when it comes to Arthur’s value to him. King Uther dies in 4x03 defending his son from an assassin, before telling Arthur that he has long been ready to be King. Then, when Uther is momentarily healed (before Morgana’s incredible disappearing amulet takes effect), he whispers his son’s name with his dying breath. Uther’s death is a triumph for everything he stands for, and crowns what is arguably the sole satisfying story arc in the whole of _Merlin._ Yet fending off the necessary and long-overdue magic reveal is so important to the creators that they would rather trample their one real success into the dirt and render Uther’s sacrifice in 4x03 meaningless than have Arthur catch a glimpse of Merlin’s powers _ten episodes_ before the end of the show. We have seen before that nothing else is sacred except that the show must remain in its much-cherished rut, and Uther’s portrayal in 5x03 proves just how much that depends on Arthur not knowing the truth.

“The Death Song of Uther Pendragon” is the penultimate in a long line of “Will Merlin reveal his magic?” episodes: 1x10, 2x08, 4x03, 5x03, and finally 5x05. In each case, the creators bring Arthur to the brink of understanding and full, open friendship with Merlin—and each time, they drag him back. In 5x03, not only do they knock Arthur out (again), but they do this right before Arthur tells his father how he is going to run the kingdom according to his own conscience, not his father’s. Thus an episode that appears to be about Arthur strengthening his rule as King instead harkens back to all of the other times the show had him senseless on the ground, deprived of the experiences that could have saved his kingdom.

That position—unconscious on the ground—is the _only_ time the show feels really safe around Arthur and his distressing ability to bring about real change. Even so short a distance from the end of the show, it cannot bear to let him up. Arthur is unconscious and on the ground in the first episode, and he is _dead_ and on the ground in the last. The frequency with which the show has to do this means the character is fighting it every step of the way—and rather than treating this as a sign that the _show_ is doing something wrong, the creators treat this as a sign that _Arthur_ is. However many times they tried to give us hope that their shabby treatment of the Once and Future King would end, ultimately they felt compelled to destroy a part of Arthur in every episode but the last, unable to comprehend why viewers wanted them to stop.

If there were any doubt about Arthur’s hatred of magic being cheaply manufactured, the way that the magic reveal comes about in the end confirms that none of the “reasons” for Merlin keeping the magic secret were valid. It took Arthur _one episode_ to accept Merlin and his magic unconditionally. In an ironic twist, the creators’ decision to leave the magic reveal until the very end just showcased how silly it was that their “hidden magic” tagline was allowed to go on a despotic rampage over everything else in _Merlin_. It is breathtaking to see how easily Arthur forgave him, how well Merlin was able to persuade Arthur of magic’s good, how naturally their full knowledge of each other came, how strong they were together. “Keep the magic secret” now seems _less_ vital than if the magic reveal had happened one or two series before. Arthur says to Merlin in the end: “I want you to always be you,” meaning he wouldn’t have Merlin be without magic if he could. This, while touching, is hardly a surprise—didn’t the Dragon say in his first meeting with Merlin that the half could not truly hate that which makes it whole? In short, Destiny answered a question in the very first episode that it _kept on asking_ until the last one—because heaven forbid new questions arise to which it might not have all the answers.

If the show _had_ acknowledged that the question had been answered at some point, and started showing how that answer affected not only the characters, but also the whole world of _Merlin_ , then we could have really seen Arthur the way he was meant to be. For one, the show would have had to give Arthur the right to reevaluate his stance on magic rationally and apply that to all of his people. Arthur says himself about Merlin revealing his magic earlier: he’s not sure what he would have done. This doesn’t mean that he would have hated Merlin, only that he was never given the opportunity to reexamine his worldview based on Merlin’s magic. And what he would have done with a clear head and time to think, with the power of an entire kingdom at his back, would have been the single most character-defining moment in all of _Merlin_.

Instead, in the finale the show falls back on treating Arthur as if he were a child and the show were an indulgent Uther who didn’t want to let Arthur cut himself on that big, sharp Excalibur. After all, what is Merlin’s reason for never revealing his magic to Arthur? “I didn’t want to put you in that position.” Merlin didn’t want to put his _king_ in a position where he would have to make a difficult decision. It’s hard to see how this could be more insulting to Arthur’s kingly competence. Making difficult decisions for the good of his people is Arthur’s _job_ ; it was what he was _made_ for. And how could Merlin have _ever,_ even in earlier series, hoped to get Arthur to bring magic back without putting Arthur in a difficult position? Moreover, didn’t it occur to him that Arthur would much _rather_ be put in a difficult position than have his ignorance result in the loss of innocent lives? Merlin, who constantly tells Arthur what a great king he will be, either doesn’t want Arthur to have to do the real work of being king—or else doubts that Arthur can.

Still, in the Series 5 finale, where Arthur is allowed to realize how wrong he’s been when it’s too late for him to act on it, we see the show that we could have been watching for two, even three series. The characterization and dialogue are natural and right between the two main leads, without contrivance or memory erasure getting in the way. Even Gaius endorses Merlin revealing his magic to Arthur—naturally, now that that knowledge can have no wide-scale impact. This is not a comfort to the viewers, however, because it shows that the creators _were_ capable of giving the show what it needed to be successful; they were simply afraid of doing so.

There are some who say that this is because the magic reveal was the only thing the writers had left to end on—that if a magic reveal had happened earlier, there was nothing they could have done to top it subsequently. This, however, defeats the whole idea of hidden magic as a _premise._ A premise is a diving board, not a life preserver. It is a promising idea that your audience is waiting for you to use as a _leaping point_ and see if your story can swim. You are _not_ supposed to cling to the diving board until your muscles lock up in paralysis, insisting to disgruntled onlookers that “It was never about the jump!” If the _Merlin_ creators never wanted to make the jump of the magic reveal until it was too late for it to affect the world of _Merlin,_ they should _never_ have set up their unique take on the Arthurian Legend with the premise of hidden magic. This is, of course, assuming that there _was_ nothing they could have done to top the magic reveal, when in fact there was: they could have delivered the idea of Albion that they’d talked up all along.

In a prequel format, which is what _Merlin_ started out being, there is the potential for us to see Arthur grow into his kingship, a subject that is not often touched on in other Arthurian tales (the ones that must cover his betrayal and eventual fall because they are _not_ prequels). In a Smallville-esque show, we also escape the necessity of giving Arthur unconvincing makeup or changing actors between Arthur the boy and Arthur the man—it is one of the reasons the initial premise of _Merlin_ was such a good idea. There was the potential for us to see a free world, a new kingdom, old wounds of the past slowly healing—even amidst all the fighting and tension that would come with such a dramatic change. A proper magic reveal is not a one-time event that alters the world with a snap of the finger; it is a process, with a whole series’ worth of potential all its own. After all, even if we had magic out in the open in Series 3 or 4, Merlin has several years’ worth of experiences that Arthur would have to come to grips with. The magic reveal, in other words, is a gift that can keep on giving—allowing new ideas to spring from that one leaping point.

There are several moments when Arthur could have found out about Merlin’s magic, but let us take 4x03 just for argument. Suppose Merlin had sensed Morgana’s pendant and tossed it aside, healing Uther completely…so completely that Uther recovered his mental faculties and decided to take over again, instigating a new Great Purge even more terrible than before. This would leave Arthur with what he thought he wanted, yet completely unable to fulfill his promise to the sorcerer who saved his father—unless he betrayed both his father and his king. We could have seen Arthur struggle with such a weighty decision, and Merlin, in a moment of pure despair, reveals his magic and prepares to leave the city, saying he knows he can never ask Arthur to make such a choice. Yet Arthur comes to the realization that there is something that matters even more than obedience to his king: doing what is best for Camelot. Uther being killed by Morgana would still work, relieving Arthur of the burden of doing it while at the same time escalating the tension between the sides of magic and non-magic, with Arthur and Merlin desperately trying to keep both sides from killing each other, even amidst the rockiness left behind by the magic reveal. At the end of Series 4, just when it feels as though the kingdom and their friendship are finally coming back together…the Saxons arrive.

We could have seen Arthur wielding Excalibur against evil magic; we could have seen Merlin and Arthur battle back to back. And if word got out that Arthur had a powerful sorcerer at his side, _everyone_ would try to target Camelot out of fear, and Merlin himself would become a target for sorcerers who’d feel as if he betrayed them. This could lead to several new developments, one of which would be Arthur being the one to protect Merlin from treachery that, however powerful he is, he’s never been trained to see coming at himself. The show could end with Arthur uniting all the kingdoms as High King, with Merlin the great sorcerer at his side. Destiny complete, Arthur is trying to cope with the idea that Merlin now has no reason to stay…and Merlin tells him not to be an idiot and that he can now choose to remain with Arthur of his own free will. If they felt like they needed to imply the fall of Camelot, the creators could show an ominous shot of Mordred against the background…a foreshadowing of things to come. I’m not sure why that sounded to them like a show nobody would watch. Certainly it could be woven into the show much more smoothly than what we got in the later series, without those awkward time jumps where major character development was constantly taking place off-screen.

And even if their fear was that the show would have nowhere to go…at least, with an earlier magic reveal, it would have gone someplace at all, which is more than can be said for the show as it turned out. Arthur’s story arc in _Merlin_ is the equivalent of watching five years of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and having it yanked away at the last minute. That is not a journey; it is a repetitive loop of eternal punishment à la Dante’s _Inferno._ Worse, the “football” that the creators snatch away is not just Arthur’s job, or his dream; it is his identity. The creators took the idea behind the Once and Future King and ground it beneath their heels, shattering the very _idea_ of Arthur. In their version, it is not he who will reign over Camelot for a generation; it is not he who will bring back magic. Gwen will rule instead after Arthur’s untimely demise, and she may well reign over the city for which Arthur sacrificed everything for ten times longer than he will. This is what the show’s fear of Arthur has brought upon it: it so dreads Arthur’s power to act that it can’t keep him on the throne for a single term of office before it takes away his beloved city—and gives it, still unfinished, to someone else.

There has been much talk of the show’s courage at the end—that at least in the finale, _Merlin_ found the guts to give us what we needed. Merlin revealed his magic to Arthur, and Arthur died prematurely, just as he did in the Legend. First of all: courage is the very last thing that can be attributed to _Merlin_ at any point in its run; second, Arthur’s death in the Legend was _not_ premature. Yes, he died before he was an old man, but not before he had accomplished what no other king in had done. He had united the peoples of Britain under one banner and presided over a peaceful kingdom in which all the various factions could have a voice. Thenarator perfectly captures [here](http://thenarator.tumblr.com/post/38767024246/what-really-pisses-me-off-is-that-none-of-the) why Arthur’s end was found wanting:

>  Did Arthur unite the land of Albion? Did he rule over a golden age? Did Merlin get his day (so much as a lousy fucking day) ruling at Arthur’s side?
> 
> …I understand that the legend ends with Arthur’s death, but before that happens he actually  _achieves something_. He unites the land of Albion, drives out the Saxons, and rules as a fair and just king for a good long time. And in this version, that didn’t happen.

Arthur didn’t die in _Merlin_ because it was the courageous thing to do; he died in _Merlin_ because the creators were never going to let him accomplish what he should have, so there was nothing else they could do with him. “But he died in the Legend!” is the cry of many, to which we must ask: then why didn’t Merlin end up as a tree? Merlin’s destiny in the Legend was to be trapped, either in a cave or another enclosure, but _he_ got out of that trap in the show, even though he’s the main character and Arthur is not. If they were going to make Arthur wait in a sleeping death until he is needed, they should have done the same to Merlin—since Nimueh is dead, Merlin could turn _himself_ into a tree or tower to watch over his king; or upon Arthur’s death, he could return to the Cave; and when we see his gaze fixed forever on a crystal, it turns out to show a scene of their reunion. If that happened, though, Merlin wouldn’t be dependent on the Dragon, which is something that the creators absolutely could and would not have. 

Last, and most important, is that keeping the “courageous” magic reveal until the show was all but over and Arthur all but dead _guaranteed_ that it would have the least impact if fans didn’t like the outcome. Arthur finding out about the magic didn’t happen when it should have. It didn’t happen when it mattered—to the other characters or to the world of _Merlin_ at large. It didn’t happen when the fans asked for it, when the actors wondered when it was coming, or in any of the five episodes where it was falsely alluded to. A show does not get credit for courage if it only does what it should have done (and knows it should have done) at the _one_ point in the story when it has nothing left to lose. And it certainly should not get credit for portraying the death of a king whose life it took pains to undermine at every opportunity.

Excalibur perhaps best represents this show’s treatment of Arthur and his kingship. Arthur’s sword, combined in this version with the Sword in the Stone, does double-duty as his symbolic protection of Albion and symbolic legitimacy as King. Yet Excalibur does almost all of its real work in the hands of someone else. In 1x09, after the sword’s creation, the Dragon warns that only Arthur may wield it…yet Uther is the one who takes up Excalibur to defeat the Black Knight, while Arthur is (yet again) unconscious. In 3x13, the sword is pulled from the lake so that Merlin,of all people, can wield it against a magical army. In 4x13, Arthur pulls out Excalibur only with Merlin’s help, and makes an offhand comment about the sword being “not bad” before getting _beaten in a fight_ while wielding it. Never does Arthur use it to defeat magical creatures; never does he notice that it has special properties; he is _never even allowed to know its name._ The only important person that he gets to slay with it is Mordred, and once that’s done, Merlin takes away Arthur’s sword _again_ to slay Morgana, then puts it back in the lake. For all the Dragon’s protestations that only Arthur should take up the sword, the creators don’t _want_ Arthur to wield Excalibur; they go out of their way to pluck it from his grasp whenever it matters. There is too much to fear in the symbolism behind it and all that Arthur’s wielding it would mean.

The creators of _Merlin_ dread the ability of every character to act, especially the ones with iron wills. But Arthur Pendragon is in a class by himself.

Besides Arthur, and the Once and Future King, they call him by one other name: Courage.


	7. The Guinevere Exception

> _It is Arthur’s fate to marry Gwen._
> 
> —Merlin, 4x11

Aha! Here is someone whose treatment at the hands of the show doesn’t match that of the other characters; even the “prophecy” concerning her differs in its nature. Gwen doesn’t turn evil or lose her optimism and competence as the show goes on. Nor does the Dragon say anything about her destiny, and while her character growth is rarely shown, she ends up fulfilling all of her potential—something that no other lead does in _Merlin._ She has an apparently happy marriage to Arthur, followed by ascending the throne and ruling all of Camelot. What’s more, her character is not at all defined by what she _must_ become according to the best-known versions of the Legend. She is not a noble, nor does she have an adulterous affair with Lancelot; she is not kidnapped by Mordred or forced to marry him; she even has a nickname to differentiate her from her counterpart. Surely, if anyone is the exception to the rule of the show’s intractable bent toward reigning in the characters, she is.

However, the bars over the window of _Merlin_ ’s premise are not only there to restrict the reimagining of the Arthurian Legend. There is an even greater danger out there than unpredictable new ideas: not depicting traditional family values on a family show. The terrifying aspect that Guinevere’s medieval character could bring to a family show is obvious: adultery. The creators would have none of that _._ There is always a threat of concerned parents getting up in arms with a scenario like this, even though by the time the nominal affair happens on the show, the creators are tripping over their own continuity in an effort to make the show “darker” and more “grown up.” At any rate, Gwen could not cheat on Arthur, and that was decided.

But there was still a problem: that gosh-darn Arthurian Legend. Everyone expects Guinevere to fall in love with Lancelot, no matter how much the creators make her out to be unequivocally associated with Arthur. The only solution to people knowing ahead of time that Gwen is supposed to be unfaithful is to make Gwen so flawless, pure, and good, that we could never even _accuse_ her of cheating on Arthur. The more the show progresses and the closer it gets to the time of the affair, the more obsessed it becomes with showing Gwen as the perfect woman and perfect queen. In the end, the creators are so paranoid about her having any discernible flaws that they exempt her from having to make any morally dubious decisions (like Merlin does) and from making any mistakes on her road to monarch (like Arthur does). When even that is insufficient, they resort to the quotation in this section’s epigraph—there was no original Dragon prophecy about Gwen, so they tacked on a prophetic substitute of sorts to keep the character in line. Gwen goes from a character free of Destiny to what is essentially an arranged marriage to Arthur with Destiny as the officiator—all because her place as Arthur’s loyal wife and queen can never be in doubt.

Sadly, this manic attempt to make sure everyone idolizes Gwen also denies her character the depth and strength it needs. Changes in her characterization are restricted to magical mind control or that mysterious void of time between series—the same place where the Mordred and Morgana of the first two series vanished without a trace. Eventually, Gwen becomes what the show wants her to be with no learning curve or demonstrable effort on her part. Instead of being doomed to fail, Gwen is doomed to succeed—and I use the word “doomed” because this doesn’t do her character any favors. Someone doomed to fail can at least inspire sympathy. Someone whom we never see struggle with herself to be a good person, a good friend, a good wife, or a good ruler—someone who has no flaws that the show acknowledges, and therefore cannot develop onscreen—doesn’t _need_ that from us. As the recipient of so much creative hand-feeding, she’ll always come out ahead compared to the other characters; so our strongest emotions and sympathies are with the people who most require them.

The creators’ [original intent](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru7hbzRaY9o) for Gwen was to have an “Ugly Betty” who could grow into being a beautiful queen; they even thought of giving her glasses, but then they “suddenly realized that was a really bad idea.” It seems that they did keep this idea to some extent, though, dressing Gwen very plainly and almost without makeup in Series 1. Now, that choice would have been so easy to make into a “looks don’t matter” message, especially for the family audience that they specifically pandered to with Gwen. They could have bolstered her character with the usefulness and leadership skills she would so desperately need later on. But they didn’t have enough confidence in her personality to follow through with it—of all the main characters, she gets the least amount of conflict, the fewest character-centered episodes, and an almost universal lack of agency during the adventures. Inexplicably, this happens _after_ Gwen has been changed from the Legend to become _more_ useful: she is a blacksmith’s daughter, is an expert on armor, and can fight with a sword. Yet after they had purposefully dressed her down and beefed up her worth to the show… they lost their nerve. Instead, they resorted to a much safer road: they made Gwen’s achievements an informed attribute.

Take, for example, the ability of Gwen to be the love interest of both Arthur and Lancelot. It would have been interesting if it was her personality that they fell for, and the grooming to be a lady came later. Or perhaps her outward appearance could improve each time she did something noteworthy; this could have signified the others’ growing recognition of Gwen’s inner beauty, without trying to make her into a fashion plate. Instead, any “inner beauty” concept is shamelessly ditched the moment we round the bend of the second series. When she is at her plainest in Series 1, no one notices her—not even Merlin, after she kisses him—until Lancelot comes along, which is the most anyone is attracted to her that whole year. Then, in Series 2, they start dressing her up more and more…and as the show starts piling on the clothes and makeup, wouldn’t you know it, she suddenly gets a parade of admirers! Arthur falls for her, Gwaine falls for her, Lancelot falls for her (harder); even villains like Hengist, Helios, and Agravaine find her attractive. The message turns from “looks don’t matter” to “dresses and make-up will get you all the guys” in the blink of an eye.

What makes this even sadder is that we can _see_ the character sacrificed to this superficiality because the writers inadvertently call attention to it. The first scene of the first Gwen-centric episode (1x12) opens with Gwen’s father buying her a new dress—a dress that, even with his blacksmithing and Gwen’s job working for Morgana, he can’t afford without some under-the-table work. That same episode, Gwen’s father dies, and Gwen brings up the dress in her last scene with him, saying that she already _had_ everything she wanted. What a strong character this is—as Merlin says in this episode, even after she suffers such a loss, she finds the wherewithal to put her life back together while everyone else stews in fruitless anger or hatches plots against the King. With Gwen’s father and mother both dead and her brother not in the picture, there can hardly be many pretty dresses on the horizon now!

This, of course, is precisely what Gwen is _not_ allowed to experience. She is not permitted to grow in spite of adversity, something that surely would have made her more relatable and sympathetic. But as a consolation prize, she _does_ get fancier, more elaborate, more revealing dresses in Series 2 and 3, with no effort or additional income—to the point that the dress she could ill afford with her father alive looks drab by comparison! Some might say the clothes are gifts from Morgana or Arthur, but it’s difficult to see how either could do that without arousing Uther’s ire—and even if they did, it doesn’t change the fact that she was put in a position where she was in over her head, and then had the consequences of that situation magically lifted. We never see her worry about food or look tired from the extra hours she works; we never once see her lose her temper even when she is grieving. Gwen’s strength is admirable, but _only_ if it comes from a human heart that really has to struggle and is occasionally allowed to fail. 

This brings us to the second problem: Gwen’s function in _Merlin_ outside of being a love interest. As with the unexpected poverty of her wardrobe and social class, the creators originally subverted expectations in having her know about armor and swords. The obvious follow-through to this would be to have Gwen take over her father’s forge after he dies, earning her bread by her blacksmithing. What if she were then approached by someone who heard her father was willing to help a sorcerer? What if Gwen came to see that she could use magic, not having been born with it, but able to see it as a tool to help people? What if, out of love for her work, she was drawn into a world she didn’t fully understand and thus had to develop on-screen in order to survive in it? The Arthurian Legend is rife with magical trinkets Gwen could have created. If the creators had had a few series’ patience with Gwen, she could even have forged Excalibur. What better way to modernize Gwen than to have this “woman of the people” create Arthur’s sword, having the land _itself_ symbolically give the King the weapon needed to rule Camelot?

Instead, not only do we get the Amazing Gown Extravaganza, a bizarre incarnation of “soft” Destiny at work, but the creators seem to have no idea what Gwen’s function is supposed to be. We see her being a seamstress on occasion, but we never get the impression that she loves sewing. She goes from making bandages in 2x01, to being kidnapped in 2x04, to being the love interest in 2x10, to making bandages again in 2x13. In the third series, she takes the initiative by making beds in 3x03, being kidnapped in 3x07, being the victim of Morgana’s plot in 3x10, unwittingly leading Morgana to Arthur’s hideaway in 3x12, and making lots and _lots_ of bandages in 3x13. In the intervening year between Series 3 and 4, we learn that Gwen has outdone herself by spending her days playing _nursemaid_ to Uther—the bandages are only implied this time, but doubtless there were quite a few poultices and hot compresses to make up for it. Not once during any of these scenes does she open a book or demonstrate any medical knowledge; her role is clearly that of comforting angel, not Dr. Gwen, Medicine Woman.  Nor do we see Gwen actually heal or help _any_ of Camelot’s people, because the spotlight is only on her and how good she is; and there are only a couple of references in the later series to her knowledge of armor and blacksmithing. If Elyan becomes a knight, why not put Gwen in the armory? She’d be more knowledgeable, more effective, and less redundant there, and she’d get to interact with Arthur and the knights more on a non-love-interest basis.

There is a good reason, however, that the show did not go this route. If you assume, not that Gwen must be a strong character, but that Gwen must be a _perfect_ character, and that the more the show advances the more perfect she _must_ be, putting Gwen repeatedly in the thick of the action would be a terrible mistake. You see, there she might have to get her hands dirty with the tough decisions that everyone else has to struggle through. This is why Gwen is sidelined and underwritten so often. This is why conflict involving Gwen always has to be manufactured by an outside force, such as mind control or class-based oppression. This is why Gwen doesn’t have to try to carry out a king’s ruthless order while still remaining loyal to her city and her conscience. This is why Gwen doesn’t have to choose between her magical kindred and her friends back in Camelot, between releasing the Dragon and letting all of Camelot fall. In short, the creators take pains to shelter Gwen’s character from the dark, nearly sadistic plot mechanics they’ve contrived for everyone else. They’re afraid her pristine morality will tarnish, so she is allowed to float to the top of Camelot’s power structure while everyone else falls around her.

To demonstrate, let us compare the treatment of Gwen to that of other central characters for a moment. Merlin, Morgana, and Gwen all criticize Arthur at various points for being a selfish prat, for being prejudiced, and for being too reliant on and/or like his father; this is validated in the many times he dismisses the words of a servant, doesn’t question Uther’s prejudice against magic enough, and occasionally puts his own pride ahead of his people. Gaius and the Great Dragon criticize Merlin for being too rash and too trusting—though sometimes it is easier to take the stand that _they_ are wrong, Merlin is indeed proven too rash on other occasions, such as leading Morgana to the Druids without thinking about how the royal family would take her unexplained absence from Camelot. Arthur and Annis both criticize Morgana for hating Uther and yet being all too similar to him, and it is hard to argue this, considering her obsession with being Queen and obliterating her enemies without question. And _everyone_ criticizes Uther for his stance on magic, his blindness to evil sorcery, and his hypocrisy when it comes to his or his family’s wellbeing. But Gwen? The only people who ever criticize Gwen are either immediately or eventually proven wrong: Morgana, ranting nonsensically about how Gwen’s betrayed her; Uther, thinking Gwen had enchanted Arthur; and Arthur, when thinking she betrayed him with Lancelot.

The closest anyone comes to criticizing Gwen is Gwen herself, in 2x10, when she says to Arthur, “I, too, have caused my fair share of hurt,” alluding to her falling for Lancelot after Arthur told her he could never be with her. However, this “criticism” is immediately negated by the very circumstances surrounding it—it was Arthur who essentially broke up with her after their first kiss, and Lancelot (who in this show is a commoner) is single, likes Gwen, and is a far more reasonable love interest at the time. Gwen did nothing wrong in falling for him, just as she does nothing wrong at any other point in the show. Even her initial awkwardness, stammering, and fear of offending other people can’t be called a real flaw. Does it lead to something bad happening? No. Does it lead her to do the wrong thing? No. Does it lead someone else to do the wrong thing—or fail to do the right thing? Never.

Gwen’s character _must_ be irreproachable, so the creators found a role for her where she could be above criticism: the _moral compass of the show._ Angel Coulby, Gwen’s actress, used this exact term to describe Gwen’s place on _Merlin._ By making Gwen the moral compass of the show, within the world of _Merlin_ she literally could do no wrong, because her values were _always in sync_ with the values of the show itself. The problem, of course, is that Camelot is supposed to have a rich variety of people with a _range_ of different beliefs. That’s the show’s original premise showing through—one that goes directly against the idea of a _single_ moral compass directing the world of Camelot. But the idea of many moral compasses having to work together and compromise is not nearly as important as having a single moral imperative, from which neither the character nor the story is allowed to depart.

Usually, a person who is the moral compass of a show (for instance, a wise mentor figure) is restricted to a cameo, because moral perfection inhibits conflict and drama _by its nature:_ everyone else is left with nothing to do around a moral voice but succumb to adulation or jealous revenge. Likewise, the creators turned audience attention away from Gwen’s character except for periodic bursts of Gwen being amazing and perfect and flawless without any inner conflict or character arc that would have made those traits seem genuine. Thus, Gwen the “moral compass” can also play the “wise mentor” role, the only role in which she really gets to influence the plot. She encourages Arthur when he refuses to let the commoners pay a new tax (2x06); she gets Arthur to stop the Witchfinder from hurting Gaius (2x07); she rallies Arthur’s spirits before his big battle in the Series 3 opener; she makes a speech (a whole speech!) to Agravaine in Series 4 that gets the villagers from the outlying lands inside the city walls; and she gains magical strategic abilities in Series 5, when she is able to suggest troop movements to the King and knights who have, as Arthur says, been trained to kill since birth1. The problem with this “wise counselor” role is that not only has the part been filled; it’s been filled by Merlin, one of the oldest mentor figures in existence. So however effective Gwen might be, there’s only so far in this role that she can go. Without the freedom to assume a more active role elsewhere, she is forced back into being the love interest, repeatedly kidnapped due to her involvement with the Pendragons—a perfect ironic echo of the Guinevere of legend they’d tried so hard to abandon.

Like everything else, Gwen’s status as love interest is strictly controlled. By the time it kicks in at the start of Series 2, the show has a serious Series 1 pitfall to recover from: when Gwen is dressed without finery and with a bare minimum of makeup, Lancelot visibly fell for her…and Arthur did not. We first see Arthur attracted to Gwen in 2x01, after she gets an inexplicable fancy dress and falls on top of him with her cleavage in his face. Out of these two first attractions, which suitor seems to love Gwen most for who she is? Lancelot. So the creators overcompensate for this insecurity by narrating that Gwen _has_ to be Arthur’s One True Love. The creators of _Merlin_ turn to the Great Dragon to cement this—as we have established, he will always tell us everything that they want us to hear in order to keep the show on track. In 2x10, what they want us to hear is that Gwen is Arthur’s Certified True Love, and the Dragon obliges by saying that the only thing that can break the love enchantment on Arthur is a kiss from his True Love. However, apparently the showrunners were afraid that even this wouldn’t be enough, so they titled the episode where Arthur falls for Gwen “The Once and Future Queen.” The show spends more time telling us _that_ Arthur and Gwen are meant for each other than _why_ they are meant for each other.

Now, other than alluding to Guinevere’s beauty, the Arthur and Guinevere love story isn’t really elaborated on in the Legend until after she cheats on him. The creators had the freedom to explore any dynamic they wanted: Arthur and Gwen could share a common interest, work together against a shared foe, or they could both improve each other. Unfortunately, the genuine relationship they could have had ran afoul of Gwen’s moral perfection. You see, a true relationship involves _mutuality,_ something that could never survive Gwen on a pedestal while Arthur has real, human character flaws. Rather than Gwen and Arthur learning from each other, it is always Arthur who learns the lesson in their relationship.  He learns to respect her even though she’s just a servant in 2x02; he apologizes for going after Vivian even though he was under a love spell; he apologizes after breaking up with her on Agravaine’s advice; and in banishing Gwen in 4x09, he is utterly in the wrong because Gwen’s supposed unfaithfulness was an illusion. The show, of course, tries to tell us that Gwen learned _one_ thing from Arthur: that everyone is important, no matter who they are (4x01). However, it makes no sense for Gwen to say this to Agravaine, because _Arthur_ is the one who learns to see past their differences in social status, something he struggles with more than once. As for Gwen, she is not allowed to work hard to have a strong relationship with Arthur; she can only gain Arthur’s undying devotion with comparatively little interaction.

As with Uther’s death, we can see the show’s fear as it approaches the Lancelot and Guinevere debacle that everyone knows is coming. In true _Merlin_ fashion, the show’s preventative measures in Series 2–4 consist of controlling events to its liking instead of allowing them to unfold naturally. Here, it slams the door shut on the affair, not by showing that Lancelot and Guinevere are incompatible, but by getting Lancelot out of the way. This unconvincing measure is attempted three times before the “arc” comes to fruition: once in 1x05, when the First Knight leaves Camelot so as not to cause a quarrel between the Pendragons; once when Lancelot leaves in 2x04, because he thinks Arthur deserves Gwen more; and once in 4x02, when Lancelot sacrifices himself so that Arthur doesn’t have to, all for the love of Guinevere. As you may gather from this sequence of events, Lancelot is just as boringly perfect as Gwen is, so not only does this strategy fail to show that they are ill-suited; the Arthur-Gwen relationship loses all credibility through the sheer number of times they have to put Lancelot on a bus in order for her to marry Arthur. If there were ever any doubt of the threat Lancelot poses to the royal couple, the events of these episodes have helpfully removed it. This didn’t have to happen; a sensible alternative to the love triangle would have been to revert to the Britannic version of the Arthurian Legend wherein Gawain was the First Knight, Gwen was either kidnapped or didn't cheat until Arthur was out of the country, and Lancelot didn’t exist. (Any viewers who lamented Lancelot’s absence would no doubt be consoled by the inclusion of Gwaine in all five series.) But that would have required an amount of boldness and creativity on the part of _Merlin_ that it only ever pretended to have.

The radical change from a flawed but relatable Guinevere to a perfect and true Guinevere undermines the whole character even as the show is trying to carve her likeness into marble. Having a character that is perfect and having a character that is strong are not the same things at all, and the episode that completes the Arthur-Lancelot-Guinevere love triangle proves it. Gwen has been nice, helpful, and generally good to everyone up until this point; if she were a strong character that had come by those traits through trial, error, and great effort, we would still be able to like her even after she made a major mistake. How do we know this? It is all too plain to see in the original Arthurian Legend: despite her adultery, Guinevere is almost always portrayed sympathetically, despite her flaws…even more so than Lancelot. A strong character can be knocked off a pedestal and still survive the blow; a perfect one can only shatter. For this reason, the creators take the decision out of Gwen’s hands with a magical bracelet of Morgana’s that compels her to kiss Lancelot, who is actually a shade that Morgana raised up for her purposes (4x09).

As we have seen before, it is not enough for Destiny to control one side of how a given event plays out; it must control both sides. Lancelot, being a shade, has no free will, and Gwen, being enchanted, has no choice in the matter, either. But at least the real Lancelot is safely dead. By contrast, the creators force Gwen to indulge in romantic relations _against her will_ because they think it will make her character _stronger_. This is so wrongheaded I don’t know where to begin. Taking away a woman’s free choice in order to preserve her “purity” is something that you might expect out of a, dare we say, medieval tale—and yet it is the _modern_ version of the Arthurian Legend that does this to Gwen. The medieval character of Guinevere, even with the adultery, was a stronger character than the flawless Guinevere of _Merlin_ , because the former was _actually in control_ of her own actions. Instead, a non-consenting Gwen forced to make out with a dead Lancelot is the show’s _family-friendly_ alternative to the love triangle of legend.

Of course, lots of people (including Merlin) have been under magical mind control, too—it’s one of the show’s favorite plot devices (unsurprisingly), including the episode directly preceding 4x09. But the way to make a character stronger under those circumstances is to have the character fight back, either during or after the event. After Merlin is under mind control via the Formorroh, for instance, he is allowed to beat Morgana in a magical duel and destroy the creature himself. Gwen, on the other hand, is never allowed to fight and prove her innocence, win in a swordfight with Morgana, or even prevent a similar thing from happening to someone else—she remains a victim all the way to the end. Gwen is not allowed to redeem herself from any genuine unfaithfulness…but she _is_ allowed to win Arthur’s full forgiveness, not because of anything she _does_ or any truth she reveals, but simply because he doesn’t want to lose her. It’s good that Gwen is helping Hunith in Ealdor, and that she’s trying to help Arthur when she gets kidnapped by Helios. But nothing Gwen does during or after 4x09 actually matters, because it’s irrelevant to her ascending status as Arthur’s wife and queen. The unspoken message is that she doesn’t _have_ to fight back against injustice—the show will do it for her, because she will always be rewarded at series’ end, no matter what the circumstance.

Gwen is not even allowed to win back the audience’s approval—she is given the _gift_ of innocence as far as we are concerned. The show takes pains to tell us about the enchanted bracelet, even though not even Merlin is ever privy to that information. Why is it not important for the characters who have _actually been wronged_ to know what we know, when we have little at stake, relatively speaking? The answer is that the creators are free to write the characters adoring Gwen unreservedly, but they can’t do that with a real audience. If this were a believable “forgive and forget” scenario, if the showrunners really believed the audience loved Gwen as much as everyone in Camelot does, they wouldn’t have needed to resort to this. They showed us Morgana’s plan because even they know that it is unrealistic human behavior for Arthur to take Gwen back with no recriminations and for Merlin to insist that Gwen is destined to be Arthur’s Queen _after he thinks she betrayed him_. (Anyone else who Merlin sees betray Arthur doesn’t end up in very good shape by the end of things.) Gwen must be flawless in our eyes, even if it’s hard to see a human being behind the halo they hang over her head.

With Gwen and Arthur’s marriage in 4x13, the creators have washed their hands of that story arc, and now turn their attention to the last remaining part of Gwen’s goal as a character: her queenship. Well, Morgana being replaced by a different character between series worked for them (if not the show), so they decided to double down on this method of storytelling. In between Series 4 and 5, Maid!Gwen is replaced by Queen!Gwen and gets _one_ leadership role in 5x02 to prove how amazing a monarch she is. Gwen’s one leadership scene as Queen is her deciding to take the hard line and sentence Sefa (who betrayed the knights’ location to her sorcerer father) to death. When Gaius balks at this, Gwen reveals that this is a ruse to trap the girl’s father without harming Sefa. Everything goes to plan, Sefa’s father is captured, and everyone is free to applaud Gwen’s queenly resolve.

This sudden spike in leadership ability fails for several reasons. First of all, with respect to the father’s return, the creators grant Gwen total assurance over something that no one could actually know. She has, after all, no personal acquaintance with the man, and the most she knows about him is that he is willing to put his daughter in mortal peril for the sake of his political agenda. Yet during and after Sefa’s sentencing, we never see Gwen struggle with her decision—and it’s a perilous one indeed. She has no counselor or king to back her up, since even Gaius is surprised when she tells him of the plan…and yet she shows a complete lack of effort and internal conflict all the way through. Gaius voices his concerns that Sefa’s father might _not_ come to rescue her, to which Gwen replies, “I believe he will,” a smile of utter confidence on her face. Nor is this just her putting on a brave front: we never see her mask fall, revealing someone conflicted about putting a young woman in a position that Gwen herself was in two series ago. Uther and Arthur—the people that we commonly associate with firm decisions and unbending attitudes—not once, but _frequently_ experience moments of relatable self-doubt and indecision in front of the audience. How many times have we seen Arthur stare out that window, mulling over something that he must or could not bring himself to do? And that is from someone with far more leadership experience than Gwen has ever had.

The Arthur analogy brings us to the second problem: the fact that the creators would not let this sequence of events turn out so well if it were any other character on _Merlin_. In “The Drawing of the Dark,” Arthur has no choice but to make the wrong decision with regards to Kara, since he is kept in the dark about Merlin’s destiny and Mordred is kept in the dark about both of them. If this were an Arthur-centric episode and _he_ had made that clever plan with Sefa, you can bet that her father would _not_ have come for her, and Arthur would have been tragically forced to kill the girl, no doubt laying some other, equally tragic events in motion. Or maybe Merlin would have killed her, just to lay some more guilt on him. And if it were Morgana in charge for a day, she would have tried to break Sefa out of prison covertly, and then gotten caught and punished. But Gwen is not allowed to make a beginning mistake, or even to have a moment of human doubt; she is only ever allowed to be right.

The third problem is that the success of this scheme rests on Gwen laying a trap to catch Sefa’s father trying to break her out of prison. What _is_ Gwen’s grand plan to ensnare the sorcerer? Why…nothing. No extra guards, no Net of Doom, no trap doors…no surprise is prepared for Sefa’s father, except that maybe the guards aren’t asleep at their posts this time around. Gwen’s clever plan works, not because anything unusual has been set up, not because of anything she thought out, but because the same defenses that have always been in place and yet never worked before just _happened_ to catch a sorcerer on Gwen’s watch! There is no need for Gwen to actually think her plan through to the end; the universe will control the results so that she gets the credit for the plan, even though nothing she does actually affects the outcome of the capture. Nothing is required of her but to look more and more regal, and the story will bolster her the rest of the way.

So much for the one and only time our non-possessed Queen demonstrates leadership skills. (If you count her speech to Agravaine in the Series 4 opener, this brings her total tally to _two_.) As leadership is the most important quality a monarch can possess 2, this single attempt is hardly enough to qualify an ex-lady’s-maid-turned-seamstress-turned-nursemaid to head a country. This is particularly true when we have already seen how the question is posed again and again on the show, “Is Arthur ready to be King?” While there is so much concern about making Arthur King at _just the right time,_ no one ever asks if Gwen is truly ready to be Queen—for what genuine answer to that question could the creators possibly have? And this lack of questioning of Gwen’s readiness is despite the fact that, according to the show’s timeline, Arthur only reigned for three years and Gwen will reign for the rest of her life! Angel Coulby does such a phenomenal job giving the character a royal presence that it almost succeeds, but we cannot escape the fact that Gwen’s air of command is completely unjustified considering the sum of her character traits up to this point.

Those who say that Gwen’s leadership abilities are perfectly plausible maintain that Arthur had three years to teach her how to govern, and that in fact, she makes a better ruler than King Arthur ever did. By the time Gwen is Queen, the show has given up any pretense of believing in Arthur as King, and the writing spends so much time showing us how Gwen is always right and Arthur is always wrong that this may very well be true. Yet one wonders how, in a mere three years, King Arthur managed to teach her all these extraordinary leadership skills that he _did not possess himself._ The King Uther and Prince Arthur model of early _Merlin_ is far more realistic—it shows Arthur taking on both positive _and_ negative leadership skills from his father, and he becomes Uther’s superior by listening to people like Gaius and Merlin, as well as listening to his own best instincts. Added to this is the fact that he was educated since birth to be a leader and possesses natural charisma. But Gwen, who has no natural charisma, no childhood education, no leadership role in any episode before 4x01, and little if any reliance on Gaius or Merlin, somehow manages to supersede King Arthur, absorbing all of this positive traits and _none_ of his negative ones while solely reliant on his tutelage. Merlin may be able to summon a rose from thin air, but _this_ is real magic.

To illustrate how unlikely this chain of events is, let us use an analogy with Merlin. If Merlin waltzed in at the beginning of Series 5 wielding a sword _better than Arthur_ and continuing to outshine him in every battle that series, causing Arthur to say upon his deathbed, “Merlin, I can think of no one better to command my armies!”…would that work? Of course not; and the excuse that it would because “Arthur trained Merlin for three years off-screen” would be absurd. Even if Arthur _did_ train Merlin for three years off-screen, Arthur has been training with a sword his entire _life,_ and Merlin has never shown any special competence with a blade. The same holds true for Gwen and leadership. Actually, that’s generous: Merlin taking over the army would be _more_ plausible than Gwen taking over Arthur’s kingship, because we’ve been shown multiple scenes where Arthur actually trains Merlin with weapons and not a _single one_ where Arthur trains Gwen. Yet the latter waltzes in at the beginning of Series 5 commanding a kingdom better than anyone else and then takes charge of Camelot by series’ end. Once again, Gwen is not allowed to work to achieve her goal _or_ participate in any scenes that would help cement her believability in that role. But she _must_ gain a completely new skill set at the drop of a hat.

We can tell that this is “soft” Destiny at work, not only because of its lack of believability, but because the creators themselves have no more faith in Gwen’s ability to command than the audience does. Yes, Gwen is the crowned Queen of Camelot; yes, she’s the face of the monarchy in the last scene of the show. But in the climax of the finale, when the time has come to do something of substance, where is she? Now that she’s Queen, is she inspiring Arthur, or planning the war, or fighting by Arthur’s side? The answer is obvious: now that she’s Queen, she has something so much more important on her hands. With the knights, Merlin, and Gaius all away and Arthur in the field, someone has to look after things at Camelot. After all, that’s why they rode out to Camlann—so their people wouldn’t suffer. And to leave Camelot without a recognized leader at a time like this would not only throw the city into chaos; it would jeopardize the very kingdom they’re fighting to protect.

At this point, with Gwen on the cusp of possibly being the sole ruler of the kingdom, the responsibility falls on her, and she must prove that she can lead. Here is her one big chance to showcase her charisma in a time of distress, to make a speech to the people, to forestall panic in the city and secure the defense in case the battle goes south. Since Camlann in the Legend nearly ended in a draw, Gwen could be the one to send in reinforcements for her king—winning over members of the council one by one with her verbal and political savvy until they are forced to concede defeat. These reinforcements would not be knights, but common men in service to a common queen. And it is these ordinary men who end up saving the day, forever changing the power structure of feudal England. How fortunate for Gwen to have found a job that cannot be overlooked!

Well, apparently the _Merlin_ creators did overlook it, because where is Gwen _really_ on that wicked day? Perhaps her dialogue will give us a clue:

“Bandages! I need bandages!”

Yes; after all the off-screen character shifts, the fancy dresses, the sweeping romance, the convenient plotting…it’s back to the bandages for Gwen. One can only wonder whom they left in charge of Camelot, but it certainly wasn’t the woman who was slated to be Queen. Her character is so much at odds with the idea of command that the writers banish her to Bandage Land even when _no one we know_ is in charge of the city. Poor Gwen; as a leader, she’s not just the kid that gets picked last in gym class—she’s the kid that’s left shuffling her feet on the sidelines, completely passed over, though her team’s still one player short. The creators forgot what Gwen’s being Queen _meant_ one episode before she became sole ruler of Camelot. They spent all series hinting that she’ll take charge of the kingdom in Arthur’s absence, and then…they forgot to have her take charge of the kingdom in Arthur’s absence. Gaius, of course, is in the medical tents, so Gwen doesn’t need to be there—but she is3. After all, it’s where she’s been in all the other major battles except 4x13. It’s where the writers instinctively believe she belongs—and the _instinctive_ part is the most damning of all.

The creators took Arthur’s Camelot away from him after only three years, just so they could gift it for life to someone who never personally led Camelot citizens, anywhere, to do anything. For all of Arthur’s social privilege and superior attitude, it is he who pardoned a father he thought was stealing food for his children; it was he who forgave a poor man King Uther’s unjust tax; it is he who put himself on the line for the elderly witch. Yet for all her lecturing on social status, has our commoner queen _ever_ put herself at risk to help a Camelot commoner she has no connection to? That’s what being a monarch is—helping people whom you don’t know, whom you have nothing to do with, whom you may not like or who may not like you. Moreover, we see Arthur put his life on the line again and again for his beloved city; where is Gwen’s “For the love of Camelot” cry? After all of the power struggles, challenges, heartbreak, and infighting over who would govern this legendary city, Camelot falls to someone who never convinced us that this was _her city,_ the one she loved above everything. (Neither can we say, “Oh, that’s the tragedy of the situation,” because if Gwen isn’t going to lead Camelot into its golden age and repeal the ban on magic, even the creators would have to admit that the Dragon’s words are a lie.) But then, Gwen is not allowed to take up the necessary screentime to make her a genuine leader. She is only obliged to reap the reward of Merlin and Arthur’s struggles, without having to share the era of peace with either of them.

The most frustrating thing about the ascent of _Merlin_ ’s Guinevere is that the creators didn’t even _like_ Gwen. When not in the spotlight, she is woefully underwritten and underdeveloped. She seems to drift from job to job, with no real passion for any of her work other than blacksmithing. Even her responses to Arthur’s courtship are for the most part muted and reluctant. The way she was otherwise neglected shows that her awesomeness is _reactive_ rather than proactive; it only shows up when the creators fear that they’re not selling their great love story and Once and Future Queen hard enough. At least if Gwen were a typical Mary Sue, we would _understand_ that the reason she co-opted the throne and never had any flaws was because the creators had a strong personal attachment to her character. It is a juvenile writing mistake, but at least we can sympathize with the intentions behind it. Yet as maddening as it is, the creators of _Merlin_ turned Gwen and Arthur’s relationship into a parody, killed off Lancelot, and made Gwen a two-dimensional character…and they didn’t even do it out of love. They destroyed untold amounts of potential and payoff so they could elevate a character to whom they were _completely indifferent_.

* * *

 

1  One only has to replace Gwen with Merlin saying, “What if you were to take a different route? Approach Ismere from the West” to see how ridiculous this is, or how a suggestion from someone with no demonstrated knowledge of maps or tactics would be taken.

2 Leadership is always the most important ability of an absolute or near-absolute monarch. While the idealistic among us will claim that honor, valor, and love for one’s people are the most important qualities, these are only what make a _good_ monarch. As we’ve seen on the show, if you’re not a strong leader in Medieval Britain, you can’t be a monarch _at all—_ at least, not for long.

3 The show attempts to justify Gwen’s presence here by her gamely swinging a sword at a solitary Saxon who somehow teleported behind Arthur’s lines to attack the healing tents containing soldiers who were _already out of commission_.  Goofy execution aside, the only reason for an ambush of this kind would be if a key leader were in the tent and you wanted to assassinate him—or her, in the case of a woman who is the direct successor to the King and decided to hang around the battle instead of remaining in Camelot where she could be ready to take charge if Arthur died. Ironically, the only plausible explanation for Gwen having to fight off a Saxon in the healer’s tent is if _she_ were the target all along—meaning that, far from saving those wounded soldiers and knights, her presence actually endangered them.


	8. Destiny's Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short but necessary counterargument to what the "real point" of the show is and isn't.

A common interpretation of what _Merlin_ was trying to do is that, rather than bringing all aspects of the show under the thumb of Destiny to forestall any unpredictability from its premise, it really only wanted to focus on the friendship of Merlin and Arthur. That is, none of those prophecies actually mattered to the show at all. In the end, _Merlin_ wasn’t about any of the things it said it was going to be about. It was only about its two main leads. That is why the creators ignored any payoff from the prophecies after events had been controlled to their liking. They wanted to spend the necessary time focusing on Merlin and Arthur, and because they succeeded with making that relationship the heart of the show, ultimately, what did or did not happen with Destiny was insignificant.

It is easy enough to test whether this idea is true: all we have to do is juxtapose the idea that the show’s original goals didn’t matter with the idea that Merlin and Arthur’s relationship is what made the show tick. So:

  *          It didn’t matter that Merlin and Arthur never united the land of Albion together…because their relationship was central to the show.
  *          It didn’t matter that Arthur’s reign as Once and Future King was cut short…because their relationship was central to the show.
  *          It didn’t matter that Arthur never freed Merlin’s people from persecution…because their relationship was central to the show.
  *          It didn’t matter that the magic reveal happened only in the last episode…because their relationship was central to the show.
  *          It didn’t matter that Merlin was forced to be Arthur’s servant to the last…because their relationship was central to the show.
  *          Merlin killing Arthur’s sister brings peace to the land…because their relationship was central to the show.



Does even _one_ of those make narrative sense in that context? This isn’t to say that Merlin and Arthur are _not_ at the heart of the show—far from it. But the idea that these things didn’t matter because of Merlin and Arthur’s relationship is plainly false. In fact, they matter _more_ than if that hadn’t been the case. Second, Merlin and Arthur may be the heart of the show…but that wasn’t the creators’ intent when they were controlling how these events played out. If there is any doubt about this, let us indulge in one final juxtaposition:

There was a [version of the final script](http://www.hypable.com/merlin-showrunner-shares-his-thoughts-on-the-series-finale-in-dvd-commentary/) where there was _no magic reveal_ …because their relationship was central to the show.

However true Merlin and Arthur being central to the show may be…it was never the creators’ intent to show that. In fact, when giving the creative reasons for including the magic reveal, Julian Murphy says that it wasn’t because they realized they were missing something pivotal to Merlin and Arthur’s relationship, but simply because the _fans_ would have been up in arms if it never happened. The creators would have been perfectly happy controlling their characters’ lives to the last, even if they based the deepest relationship in the show on a lie the whole way through. Merlin and Arthur were _not_ the reason we didn’t get payoff for these other ideas, and it _wasn’t_ because the latter weren’t important that they were scrapped. _Every_ relationship and idea in the show was mangled or neglected by the end; the bond between Merlin and Arthur was just the only thing strong enough to survive the iron fists of Destiny. And if it hadn’t been for the fans, the creators would have botched that, too.

Here is a sentence that perhaps makes more sense:

_It didn’t matter to the creators that their characters achieved nothing, because their sole intent was to sell an idea without ever having to deliver on it._

 


	9. Uther

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crux of the matter.

Looking back at the first series, at who all of these people were, we get the impression that _none_ of the characters really wanted to take the journey that the show made them take. Series 1 Merlin didn’t want to be stuck as Arthur’s servant for a decade, watching his magical kin getting killed left and right, only to lose Arthur at the end. Series 1 Mordred did not want to be forced to kill Arthur without any input from him. Series 1 Morgana did not want to go insane and start hatching increasingly desperate plans to take over the throne. Series 1 Arthur did not want the only friendship in his life to be based on a lie; nor did he want to remain blind to the suffering of his people from the first to the last day of his reign. And Series 1 Gwen did not want to be either Arthur’s wife or Queen of Camelot. The only exceptions are Gaius and the Great Dragon, for reasons already explained…

…except for one other character of note: King Uther. It may come as a surprise, but Uther is the non-mouthpiece character that the show treats with the most respect. Despite everything the characters say against him, what we see is a very well drawn portrait of a king—a decent king for the time period he was in. His backstory is compelling; he is both sympathetic and frightening; and his death is exactly what the character himself would want. Such is his pull that instead of showing how they are different from Uther, all four main leads exhibit more and more characteristics of Uther as the show goes on. Merlin becomes quicker to kill any threat to Arthur; Morgana becomes a tyrant surpassing even her father; Arthur’s hatred and fear of magic grow with each series; even Guinevere has a moment of sentencing a woman to death for magic, though of course, Gwen really was innocent.

What, then, are the characteristics of Uther Pendragon? We know that he did not inherit his kingdom; he won it by conquest. A first-generation ruler like that must establish his legitimacy as King, so in order to secure his kingdom, he puts his faith in the absolute rule of law: “Nothing’s certain. Save one thing. The law stands or this kingdom falls” (1x12). Uther was what we would call a benevolent dictator—while he is not the ruler we might wish for today, he was a marked improvement over the usual bloodthirsty warlords that occupied places of power in that time. Then he lost his wife to magic that he himself had a part in, spinning his world out of control. And in his hatred and fear of sorcery, he made the practice of all magic punishable by death.

Uther is notoriously bad at recognizing real magic, accusing Gaius and Gwen of sorcery and turning a blind eye to Edwin, Valiant, and even his own new trollish wife. Yet he feels compelled to keep up the hunt for something that he knows he cannot control. In his blind attempt to suppress all magic—the thing he fears above all else—he ends up persecuting the innocent and letting fear worm its way into his court. He kills every Dragonlord but one, after they did nothing but help him. He brings a witchfinder in who almost succeeds in getting Uther to kill his most trusted advisor. He sends out guards time and time again to search through rooms, make accusations, and participate in unwarranted arrests. Uther’s fear of magic propels an otherwise just man to descend into tyranny and seek to control the actions (and even the opinions) of everyone around him.

 _Merlin_ ’s treatment of its premise is exactly the same as King Uther’s treatment of magic—and for the same reason. Despite the in-show condemnation of everything Uther is, it is Uther whom the show really wants in charge. Thus Uther can get away with being true to his own character because he epitomizes everything the show values most. He is no danger to it; he is, in fact, a very helpful character to have around, because he can do the dirty work of bogging _Merlin_ down, while taking all the blame for it by having the heroes criticize him. If the creators said they wanted to keep things as close to the same as they could in Camelot for the next ten years, and keep magic from being too disruptive to the status quo, Uther would wholeheartedly agree with them. This show may claim to be about the Arthurian Legend, but ultimately, it looks and moves like Uther whenever it can get away with it—and sometimes even when it can’t.

Why else would bringing peace to the land be synonymous with beating the magical faction into submission? Why else would the prophecies demand that a magical child die to secure Arthur’s kingship? Why else would Uther wield Excalibur before Arthur, _only_ with a positive outcome? Why else would there be a recurring theme that only villains challenge the reigning authorities? Why else would the only magicians to survive the finale be the ones who’ve used magic to protect the monarchy’s interests, no matter how much they _and_ their kin might be hurt doing so? If you look at all of these seeming incongruities with the show’s original intent, every single one of them would have Uther’s stamp of approval—yes, even Merlin and Gaius using magic behind the scenes, because Uther has proven on more than one occasion that he will use magic for his own ends despite his outward hatred of it.

The story of _Merlin_ says nothing about tolerance and freedom; on the contrary, if only Merlin had knuckled under the Dragon’s edicts as Uther wants Camelot to submit unconditionally to him, it all could have worked out so well. Blindly follow what your elders and betters tell you to do, servant. Let the Druid boy die! Refuse to enlighten Morgana! Turn a blind eye to your fellow magicians, keep Arthur hating magic, and don’t even _think_ of contemplating the overthrow of your king! Because if you don’t bow to everything we want you to do, you and everyone you love will be punished _._

In fact, perhaps we’ll punish you anyway…just because we can.


	10. Destiny and the Arthurian Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the medieval way of thinking is more liberating than the show's is.

There is one last bastion of excuse for how _Merlin_ premise played out: namely, the source material. As the show went on (particularly in Series 4 and 5), the creators wanted to make _Merlin_ more grown-up and darker. When Arthur stepped up as King, they wanted to make _Merlin_ less like a family-friendly alternate version of the Arthurian Legend and more like the Arthurian Legend itself. Perhaps this is why Destiny was so unbending in the end—the creators felt compelled to be more faithful to the Legend than they’d been in the past.

It is true that upon Arthur’s coronation, the showrunners dropped the idea of Merlin and Arthur uniting the land and bringing magic back in favor hitting all the highlights of the Arthurian Legend—or at least, the superficial details of the best-known versions. From Series 4 on out, they gave us Merlin as an old man more often, King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table, all with far more frequency than the Arthurian elements in previous series. But the show’s magic was gone, and with it any ties to the spirit of the Arthurian Legend. Once the creators decided to drop their unique vision of the show in favor of falling back— _retreating—_ to the cover of the Legend, the world of _Merlin_ became a lifeless shell. It crawled from one Arthurian bullet point to the next, and the only “twists” it brought to bear did not exist to make us see the Arthurian Legend in a new light, but to make it easier for the show’s plot to hit the next bullet point on the agenda. From 4x03 on, no more effort would ever be spent on integrating legendary people and events into the world of _Merlin_ in a meaningful way, for the very simple reason that that world had been left to die.

All of the Arthurian elements introduced late in the game are covered in the most superficial sense, instead of the creators taking the time to integrate them properly into the world of _Merlin_. For example, early _Merlin_ ’s story of Uther and Igraine has many thematic parallels to its legendary counterpart. Originally, Uther starts a war to get Igraine, finally disguising himself as Igraine’s husband. He lies with her and conceives Arthur, and then kills Gorlois, thus betraying both him and her…but he also loves and marries Igraine in the end. In _Merlin,_ Uther bargains a life to conceive an heir, and when that life turns out to be Igraine’s, he wreaks undeserved vengeance on magic, as well as sleeping with Morgana’s married mother…but we see many times that he really did love Igraine. The facts are different, but the emotional impression is the same. Likewise, the Cup of Life, while working differently from the Holy Grail, is significant and powerful, and it too has symbolism around life and death as well as being universally sought after, as the Grail was. Merlin himself is allowed to shine ever brighter in his role as Arthur’s chief counsel and advisor, even if he lacks the years of the sage of legend. And Arthur is everything we expect of a prince who will one day be renowned as Britain’s best king: proud, flawed, and compassionate.

In Series 4 and 5, we have the opposite scenario: the showrunners go through the motions of the Arthurian Legend, but with no corresponding themes to make the events resonate with us. We have Tristan and Isolde: they were two people in love in the Legend, so we see two characters named Tristan and Isolde who are in love. Lancelot and Guinevere had an affair in the Legend, so we see two characters who look like Lancelot and Guinevere having an affair. The Legend had the Sword in the Stone, so we see Arthur pull a sword out of a stone (no need for him to actually do it by himself!). A character named Agravaine in the Legend was treacherous, so we see a character named Agravaine who’s treacherous, even if he never gets a concrete motive for said treachery. A particularly sad example is that of the underused knights—take Gwaine, who in Series 3 was adapted and reinvented with a proper personality…and in Series 4 and 5 is mostly the comic relief, a pale shadow of his former self. Instead of being an alternative universe prequel, the show did move to the “Yet another Arthurian Legend show” category—but in doing so, it sacrificed everything unique and valuable about itself in order to mimic the source material.

As for the Arthurian Legend being a sound defense for the show’s pathological dependence on Destiny and need to control the characters’ choices and outcomes…the idea is laughable. The mindset behind the dictatorial prophecies, the inevitable tragedy that the creators tried so hard to convince us of, is nowhere to be found. Oh, there is tragedy enough in the old tales—but it is not the Greek classical kind. Arthurian tragedy doesn’t say that any choice we make is doomed to fail; rather, it says that all too often, a horrible event occurs that could have been avoided…and wasn’t.

Take the most comprehensive work in its canon: _Le Morte D’Arthur_ , a compendium of Arthuriana nearly 350,000 words long. If we are to look for the word Fate—it never appears. “Doom” appears twice, both times referring to Judgment Day. The word “prophecy” occurs a total of _four_ times in all that text—twice when relating to King Arthur defeating Lot because Merlin held him spellbound with a _tale_ of prophecy, and twice when relating to Merlin’s prophecy about Mordred: “After this Merlin told unto King Arthur of the prophecy that there should be a great battle beside Salisbury, and Mordred his own son should be against him.” Notice that it doesn’t say the outcome of the battle, or whether Arthur and Mordred will die, or who will kill them. It doesn’t even say that Mordred is evil. It leaves the outcome entirely in the hands of the characters.

What does this work have to say about Destiny? The word occurs three times in _Le Morte D’Arthur_ , and all three deserve a close examination, for it is here that we really witness the contrast between the Arthurian Legend and _Merlin._ The first mention comes to us by way of King Pellinore: “Me forthinketh, said King Pellinore, that this shall me betide, but God may fordo well destiny.” Ironically, what this quote is saying is that Destiny is _not_ certain, because God has the power to “fordo” (destroy) Destiny itself. That idea is squarely against everything we have seen in the show; and the second mention, courtesy of Lancelot, is no better. In this scene, Lancelot speaks to Guinevere after Arthur’s death, when she tells Lancelot to forsake his love for her: “Nay, madam, wit you well that shall I never do, for I shall never be so false to you of that I have promised; but the same destiny that ye have taken you to, I will take me unto, for to please Jesu, and ever for you I cast me specially to pray.” That “destiny,” which involves a monastic atonement for their destructive affair, is something Lancelot has taken into his own hands, just like Guinevere has. When in _Merlin_ do we ever see that “destiny” is something that a character can create himself?

Destiny’s third mention in _Le Morte D’Arthur_ comes the closest to being the kind of inevitable fate of which the creators are almost obsessively fond. The Battle of Camlann is over; all of Mordred’s knights are dead, along with all but three of Arthur’s men. Arthur sees Mordred over a great pile of his fallen knights, and Lucan, one of the few left alive, begs him not to go after Mordred: “Therefore, for God’s sake, my lord, leave off by this, for blessed be God ye have won the field, for here we be three alive, and with Sir Mordred is none alive; and if ye leave off now this wicked day of destiny is past.” The word “destiny” here comes closest to its connotation in _Merlin_ because of the events that led up to Camlann. On the Wicked Day, Arthur’s men and Mordred’s men are all assembled, ready to sign a month-long peace treaty. Suddenly, a snake springs out of the bushes, and one of the knights raises his sword to attack the snake. This is taken on both sides as a signal to charge, and battle is joined, ostensibly through the cruel hand of Fate.

Yet recall King Pellinore’s words: in the Arthurian Legend, God has the power to undo Destiny itself. The night before the battle of Camlann, Arthur has a heavenly vision of Gawain, coming to warn him:

> Thus much hath God given me leave, for to warn you of your death; for an ye fight as to-morn with Sir Mordred, as ye both have assigned, doubt ye not ye must be slain, and the most part of your people on both parties. And for the great grace and goodness that almighty Jesu hath unto you, and for pity of you, and many more other good men there shall be slain, God hath sent me to you of his special grace, to give you warning that in no wise ye do battle as to-morn, but that ye take a treaty for a month day; and proffer you largely, so as to-morn to be put in a delay.

Accordingly, Arthur goes to make a month-long treaty with Mordred. Yet instead of making sure that his men “in no wise do battle” with his treacherous son, he and his men are all but itching to draw their swords: “And when Arthur should depart, he warned all his host that an they see any sword drawn:  Look ye come on fiercely, and slay that traitor, Sir Mordred, for I in no wise trust him.” Mordred says the same thing to his own men, with the result that both sides have their fingers on the metaphorical trigger. The adder symbolically sets them to war, but _any_ mishap on that day could have done the same, because Arthur and Mordred did not come to Camlann with a sincere interest to broker peace. Battle is what both sides want, and battle is what they get.

Yet even after all of the carnage of Camlann, even with the great majority of Arthur’s knights dead, there is stillhope _._ Lucan’s words confirm it: Arthur’s men have won the field, and if Arthur does not fight Mordred, the “wicked day of destiny” will not come to pass. But Arthur fights Mordred—he _chooses_ to fight Mordred—and he does not escape Destiny _because he does not want to._ There are no crystals that dictate the future; there is no prophetic dragon; there is no Disir judgment. There is no one, in any of these instances, who does not have a choice; there is no one who is doomed to die, doomed to kill, or forced to follow a path not of his choosing. Arthurian tragedy is as far a cry from the “tragedy” of _Merlin_ as a work of literature can get.

What is so astonishing is that it’s the _modern_ version, not the medieval one, which binds the characters to their fate; it is the writers of our century that have made Destiny a despot. It is impossible to overstate how big a change this is. This is likely the element that has changed the _most_ from the Legend _—_ more than a younger Merlin, more than a Camelot without magic, more than a faithful Guinevere (who is canonical in some early sources). It seems like the idea of inescapable fate _would_ be something you’d find in a legend a thousand years old—but the ideas of prophetic Destiny occur in _Merlin_ with a far greater frequency than in any Arthurian legend from the 6th to the 20th century. Any defense of _Merlin_ ’s use of Destiny that cites “historical accuracy” or claims that it is “true to the spirit of the Legend” is therefore dubious, if not outright false.


	11. The Legacy of Merlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What this whole long spiel has been about.

 

 

> _Fantasy drama based on the legend of King Arthur and Merlin._
> 
> —BBC One, describing _Merlin_ on its website

 

How different this quotation is from the original description of Capps’! The _Merlin_ producer initially spoke of giving the audience the unexpected; of making a different world to the one the audience recognizes; of switching the familiar with the new. We can still see remnants of the original idea on the IMDB page: “The adventures of the legendary sorcerer as a young man.” Wikipedia backs up both Capps and the IMDB in how _Merlin_ is different from the usual Arthurian fare: “The show is loosely based on the Arthurian legends of the young wizard Merlin and his relationship with Arthur Pendragon but differs from traditional versions in many ways.” On BBC One, the website for the show itself, there is no trace at all of the show that _Merlin_ once tried to be. It is as if the creators are ashamed of even attempting to be different and are hoping we will all forget about such an obvious misstep on their part. 

Yet it is not in trying to reinvent the Arthurian Legend that the error lies. The original idea of _Merlin—_ divesting the Legend of any trappings that might make it hard to translate into a modern world—could have worked. But instead of clothing the Legend in modern garb, it piled the monarchical trappings on higher than the Legend itself did. In the earliest stories of Arthur, when kings were thick on the ground, Arthur is not a king, nor the son of a king; he is not destined to do anything; there is no mention of a future reign; and even in the later stories, it is his _action_ of pulling the sword from the stone that begins his kingship, and his skill as a leader in war that affirms his legitimacy (which due to the circumstances of his birth is initially in doubt). Likewise, when Merlin later joins him in the literary tradition, he is known not by his fated destiny, but by all that he could do. Here, in our time—in an age of democracy—we have Arthur as the Once and Future King, the recognized heir apparent of the reigning king; the immortal Emrys, patrilineal Dragonlord, and prophesied Greatest Sorcerer Ever destined to be beside him; and a Once and Future _Queen,_ if 2x02 is to be believed. In the late medieval stories of Arthur, Destiny is something that happens _because_ of characters’ choices, not in spite of them. And the two prominent female characters are stronger in the Arthurian Legend as a whole than they are here in _Merlin._

The explanation that the _Merlin_ creators really wanted to be true to the Arthurian Legend simply does not hold water. It is merely an excuse to exert more and more control over their characters and does not stand up to scrutiny, the more so because of the lack of Arthurian courage in their storytelling. When an image of the show’s persona comes to mind, it is not that of a man bravely scaling a new mountain, or even an old one. It is of a man paid to climb a mountain in a month and spending all his time at the mountain’s foot, jumping up and down on a pogo stick and telling anyone who will listen that he’s making the climb. At the very end, he drives _around_ the mountain, plants his flag on the other side, and proclaims to one and all: “You can see I climbed the mountain because I’m standing just where all the legendary hikers ended _their_ journey—at the bottom!” _Merlin_ may have ended in more or less the same place the Arthurian Legend did…but without the growth of the characters and story along with the plot, what did such an “expedition” ultimately mean?

The Series 4 and 5 reliance on Arthurian Legend events did have an impact, however. After all, a family show intending to capture some of the spirit of the legends can be brushed off as not really counting as a true Arthurian Legend adaptation. The same cannot be said of a creative team determined to shake off the “family show” image and make the show darker, more adult, and more like the Arthurian Legend. The result is that _Merlin_ has firmly tied itself to Arthuriana: it adopted the brand so the creators could sell it the only way they knew how. And in doing so, they likely guaranteed the show’s longevity—some scholar studying the impact of the Arthurian Legend adaptations will probably run across this little show long after society in general has forgotten about it.

Yet as the creators found out, the tie to the Arthurian Legend works both ways. You see, one of the reasons the Arthurian Legend is so important is that it can be retold and reinvented time after time. A good Arthurian retelling will say something new about the Arthurian Legend, while at the same time conveying something significant about the time in which it was written. A bad Arthurian retelling, though, can only inflict the barest of damage on such an expansive canon—so the _only_ thing it will speak about is the era of the adaptation itself. As things stand now, if people look at _Merlin_ in a generation or a century, it will not be to see what the show has _contributed_ to the ideas of the Legend. It will be to see what the show says about _us_ and our time.

And what does _Merlin_ have to say about our time? Does it say that we embrace the strongest ideas in our work, no matter how controversial they might be? Does it say that we’ve ushered in an era of peace, of religious tolerance? In an age of democracy, does it free its characters from tyranny and oppression? Does it celebrate diversity of thought and independence of action? Does it reflect our bravery in treading new ground, in challenging tradition, in defying our fears? Does _Merlin_ symbolize the values that we hold most dear in this era—or even those values from the Middle Ages that are still highly prized today?

I wish I could say that the answer to these questions is yes. But in fact, BBC’s _Merlin_ is Uther Pendragon incarnate. The need to control as a result of fear—that, I am sorry to say, is _Merlin._ It grooms Arthur for kingship, but doesn’t really believe in him. It shows no interest in a united kingdom or in any of the social issues that it wove into its own makeup. It’s dictatorial, views Merlin with affectionate contempt, and always takes the most conservative approach to every problem. It treats authority figures as ones who should not be challenged from within, and is constantly trying to make its sons learn lessons while depriving them of the knowledge necessary to do so. (It doesn’t care about its daughters, which is why Gwen never had to learn anything and Morgana was forbidden from learning anything.) For all that it will use magic for its own ends, it doesn’t actually want magic running around in a way that might upset the order in which things _must_ happen in Camelot.

Perhaps it is best that no continuation is planned; for it were, we would get even more of the Utherian Legend that brought this show to ruin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of the line, everyone. Thanks so much for reading and commenting on this essay!


End file.
